Nin Andrews's ActivityTypepadTypepadtag:typepad.com,2003:profile.typepad.com/services/activity/atom/tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/personhttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970dtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d0240a47ce854200d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2019-04-16T16:40:38Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b88330240a47ce852200dThree Poets from Press 53: Shivani Mehta, Kathleen McGookey, and Leona Sevick (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2019-04-16T16:40:37Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>&#0160;</p> <p>Every now and then I wake up in serious need of a poetry fix. I feel a kind of angst, as if I don’t quite fit in my skin. Maybe I’ve had bad dreams, or worse, the same old worry-dreams I’ve had for years. Or maybe I’m just tired—tired of the news, the weather, my own mind and spirit. I want something refreshing, something to wake me up, to make my day a little brighter.</p> <p>I start looking for a poem, or a collection of poems, by poets I haven’t seen or heard enough from yet. Poets like Jamey Dunham—I’ve been waiting for a long time for his second book of poems. Or like Shivani Mehta, who blew me away with her first collection, <em>Useful Information for the Soon-to-be Beheaded. </em>Who could resist a book with a title like that? Or Kathleen McGookey, whose precise and breath-taking poems enchant me again and again.&#0160;Or my latest discovery, Leona Sevick, whose insights and sly wit catch me off guard.&#0160;</p> <p>Three of these poets have been published by Press 53, so I thought I’d post a poem by each of these women, though I should warn you, one poem is not enough to display the depth of their magic. Still, I think it might inspire readers to run out and find more of their work.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>First, a poem published by <em>PoetsArtists</em>&#0160;from Shivani Mehta&#0160;whose recent poems are haunting and other-worldly.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Exodus</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>When we were exiles my mother wrapped me in paper bags for warmth, carried me on her back as she walked for miles. Our shadows on the ground were one body, everything I saw was framed by her long black hair.&#0160; Sometimes we stopped in villages for shelter, never stayed for more than a night. We weren’t searching for anything holy, just a place where we could uncurl our fists. My mother told me I was born with the map on my back. I remember how, when we were lost, she used it to orient herself, her coarsened fingers undoing the buttons of my dress, smoothing the cloth from my shoulders, cities and towns asleep under her fingers. Once she said, <em>your spine is the river, each vertebra is a path we could take</em>.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Next, from Kathleen McGookey, a poem published by&#0160;<em>KYSO Flash</em>. I love her surreal wit and sensibility. &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span lang="EN">Taxonomy</span></p> <p class="normal"><span lang="EN">&#0160;</span></p> <p class="normal"><span lang="EN">Months later, when my husband finally scratched my bare back, the itchy center part I couldn’t reach, tiny sugar ants streamed out, then carpenter ants and termites, crickets and earwigs and millipedes, then silverfish, furry disoriented bumblebees, a few fireflies, green grasshoppers, and moths with large eyes glaring from their wings.&#0160; He leapt out of bed to scoop them into glass jars with metal lids and line them up on the headboard.&#0160; The snakes settled into the bathtub, its candlelit waters still smelling of vanilla and blood orange, little waves lapping the sides.&#0160; In Sharpie, he catalogued his find by genus and species on the back of his hand and forearm.&#0160; I missed the electricity of all those wings inside my skin.&#0160; <em>This will never teach him</em>, I thought. </span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And finally, from Leona Sevick, a poem from her book, <em>Lion Brothers</em>, which has me convinced that all I really need in order to solve my problems is “a fucking pot.”&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Self-help</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>First, get yourself a good cast iron pot. Don’t skimp.<br />You know what kind; you see them everywhere<br />and think&#0160;<em>Who would pay that much for a fucking pot?</em><br />You will. Go to every Marshalls, TJ Maxx, and<br />Home Goods in a hundred mile radius, and maybe<br />you’ll get lucky and find an odd colored one—<br />mustard yellow or baby shit brown—marked way down<br />because some people only care about how these things<br />look, not what they do. My aunt’s like this.<br />Had a pantry full of every kind—grill pan, Dutch oven,<br />braiser, you name it. I don’t think her manicured hand,<br />always holding a Virginia Slim, ever touched one.<br />Even if you don’t find one cheap, get one.<br />Steal it if you have to. I won’t judge.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Once you get your pot, you’ll know why you have it.<br />This pot can do anything and perfectly, every time.<br />Fancy a fry up? You have your pot. Need a twenty minute<br />cry? You’ll have a perfect risotto when it’s over.<br />Want to make grand statements with a heavy thud<br />while you’re tidying up? Turn to your pot. Soak it<br />for longer than 30 minutes and you’ll be able<br />to wipe whatever’s stuck to it free with a soft sponge.<br />No need for a man to provide elbow grease.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>In old pictures of refugees, the ones that show women<br />with their bundles tied tight with string, there is always<br />a pot balanced on top of their precious possessions.<br />You’ll never wonder again what it means.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a4a18e39200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="SM_b&amp;w2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a4a18e39200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a4a18e39200b-120wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="SM_b&amp;w2" /></a>Shivani Mehta’s work has appeared in numerous journals and her full-length book of poetry,&#0160;<em>Useful Information for the Soon-to-be Beheaded</em>, is out from Press 53.&#0160; Born in Mumbai, raised in Singapore, Shivani lives near Los Angeles with her family.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a47ce4c4200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_1909" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a47ce4c4200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a47ce4c4200d-120wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_1909" /></a>Kathleen McGookey’s fourth book of prose poems, <em>Instructions for My Imposter</em>, is forthcoming from Press 53. Her chapbook <em>Nineteen Letters</em>is forthcoming from BatCat Press. Her work has appeared in journals including <em>Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Indiana Review, Ploughshares, The Prose Poem: &#0160;An International Journal,&#0160;</em><em>Prairie Schooner</em>, <em>Quarterly West, Rhino, Seneca Review,&#0160;</em>and <em>West Branch</em>. She has published three other books of poems, two chapbooks, and <em>We’ll See</em>, translations of French poet Georges Godeau’s prose poems. She lives in Middleville, Michigan, with her family.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a453b1e8200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="180606 portraits - web - leona sevick-1039" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a453b1e8200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a453b1e8200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="180606 portraits - web - leona sevick-1039" /></a>Leona Sevick&#39;s work appears in <em>The Journal, Crab Orchard Review, The Normal School,&#0160;The Southeast Review, The Arkansas International</em> and elsewhere. Her work also&#0160;appears in <em>The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks</em>. She&#0160;is the 2017 Press 53 Poetry Award Winner for her first full-length book of poems, <em>Lion&#0160;Brothers</em>. Sevick was named a Tennessee Williams Scholar for the 2018 Sewanee&#0160;Writers’ Conference and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She teaches Asian American literature at Bridgewater College, and she can be reached at&#0160;<a href="https://leonasevick.com"><u>leonasevick.com</u>.</a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Every now and then I wake up in serious need of a poetry fix. I feel a kind of angst, as if I don’t quite fit in my skin. Maybe I’ve had bad dreams, or worse, the same old worry-dreams I’ve had for years. Or maybe I’m just tired—tired of the news, the weather, my own mind and spirit. I want something refreshing, something to wake me up, to make my day a little brighter.</p> <p>I start looking for a poem, or a collection of poems, by poets I haven’t seen or heard enough from yet. Poets like Jamey Dunham—I’ve been waiting for a long time for his second book of poems. Or like Shivani Mehta, who blew me away with her first collection, <em>Useful Information for the Soon-to-be Beheaded. </em>Who could resist a book with a title like that? Or Kathleen McGookey, whose precise and breath-taking poems enchant me again and again.&#0160;Or my latest discovery, Leona Sevick, whose insights and sly wit catch me off guard.&#0160;</p> <p>Three of these poets have been published by Press 53, so I thought I’d post a poem by each of these women, though I should warn you, one poem is not enough to display the depth of their magic. Still, I think it might inspire readers to run out and find more of their work.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>First, a poem published by <em>PoetsArtists</em>&#0160;from Shivani Mehta&#0160;whose recent poems are haunting and other-worldly.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Exodus</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>When we were exiles my mother wrapped me in paper bags for warmth, carried me on her back as she walked for miles. Our shadows on the ground were one body, everything I saw was framed by her long black hair.&#0160; Sometimes we stopped in villages for shelter, never stayed for more than a night. We weren’t searching for anything holy, just a place where we could uncurl our fists. My mother told me I was born with the map on my back. I remember how, when we were lost, she used it to orient herself, her coarsened fingers undoing the buttons of my dress, smoothing the cloth from my shoulders, cities and towns asleep under her fingers. Once she said, <em>your spine is the river, each vertebra is a path we could take</em>.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Next, from Kathleen McGookey, a poem published by&#0160;<em>KYSO Flash</em>. I love her surreal wit and sensibility. &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span lang="EN">Taxonomy</span></p> <p class="normal"><span lang="EN">&#0160;</span></p> <p class="normal"><span lang="EN">Months later, when my husband finally scratched my bare back, the itchy center part I couldn’t reach, tiny sugar ants streamed out, then carpenter ants and termites, crickets and earwigs and millipedes, then silverfish, furry disoriented bumblebees, a few fireflies, green grasshoppers, and moths with large eyes glaring from their wings.&#0160; He leapt out of bed to scoop them into glass jars with metal lids and line them up on the headboard.&#0160; The snakes settled into the bathtub, its candlelit waters still smelling of vanilla and blood orange, little waves lapping the sides.&#0160; In Sharpie, he catalogued his find by genus and species on the back of his hand and forearm.&#0160; I missed the electricity of all those wings inside my skin.&#0160; <em>This will never teach him</em>, I thought. </span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And finally, from Leona Sevick, a poem from her book, <em>Lion Brothers</em>, which has me convinced that all I really need in order to solve my problems is “a fucking pot.”&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Self-help</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>First, get yourself a good cast iron pot. Don’t skimp.<br />You know what kind; you see them everywhere<br />and think&#0160;<em>Who would pay that much for a fucking pot?</em><br />You will. Go to every Marshalls, TJ Maxx, and<br />Home Goods in a hundred mile radius, and maybe<br />you’ll get lucky and find an odd colored one—<br />mustard yellow or baby shit brown—marked way down<br />because some people only care about how these things<br />look, not what they do. My aunt’s like this.<br />Had a pantry full of every kind—grill pan, Dutch oven,<br />braiser, you name it. I don’t think her manicured hand,<br />always holding a Virginia Slim, ever touched one.<br />Even if you don’t find one cheap, get one.<br />Steal it if you have to. I won’t judge.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Once you get your pot, you’ll know why you have it.<br />This pot can do anything and perfectly, every time.<br />Fancy a fry up? You have your pot. Need a twenty minute<br />cry? You’ll have a perfect risotto when it’s over.<br />Want to make grand statements with a heavy thud<br />while you’re tidying up? Turn to your pot. Soak it<br />for longer than 30 minutes and you’ll be able<br />to wipe whatever’s stuck to it free with a soft sponge.<br />No need for a man to provide elbow grease.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>In old pictures of refugees, the ones that show women<br />with their bundles tied tight with string, there is always<br />a pot balanced on top of their precious possessions.<br />You’ll never wonder again what it means.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a4a18e39200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="SM_b&amp;w2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a4a18e39200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a4a18e39200b-120wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="SM_b&amp;w2" /></a>Shivani Mehta’s work has appeared in numerous journals and her full-length book of poetry,&#0160;<em>Useful Information for the Soon-to-be Beheaded</em>, is out from Press 53.&#0160; Born in Mumbai, raised in Singapore, Shivani lives near Los Angeles with her family.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a47ce4c4200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_1909" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a47ce4c4200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a47ce4c4200d-120wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_1909" /></a>Kathleen McGookey’s fourth book of prose poems, <em>Instructions for My Imposter</em>, is forthcoming from Press 53. Her chapbook <em>Nineteen Letters</em>is forthcoming from BatCat Press. Her work has appeared in journals including <em>Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Indiana Review, Ploughshares, The Prose Poem: &#0160;An International Journal,&#0160;</em><em>Prairie Schooner</em>, <em>Quarterly West, Rhino, Seneca Review,&#0160;</em>and <em>West Branch</em>. She has published three other books of poems, two chapbooks, and <em>We’ll See</em>, translations of French poet Georges Godeau’s prose poems. She lives in Middleville, Michigan, with her family.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a453b1e8200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="180606 portraits - web - leona sevick-1039" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a453b1e8200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a453b1e8200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="180606 portraits - web - leona sevick-1039" /></a>Leona Sevick&#39;s work appears in <em>The Journal, Crab Orchard Review, The Normal School,&#0160;The Southeast Review, The Arkansas International</em> and elsewhere. Her work also&#0160;appears in <em>The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks</em>. She&#0160;is the 2017 Press 53 Poetry Award Winner for her first full-length book of poems, <em>Lion&#0160;Brothers</em>. Sevick was named a Tennessee Williams Scholar for the 2018 Sewanee&#0160;Writers’ Conference and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She teaches Asian American literature at Bridgewater College, and she can be reached at&#0160;<a href="https://leonasevick.com"><u>leonasevick.com</u>.</a></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d0240a4507567200c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2019-04-08T18:59:38Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b88330240a4507565200cAn Interview with Sally Ashton (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2019-04-08T18:59:37Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>NA: Congratulations on your new book, <em>The Behavior of Clocks!</em>&#0160;I thought I&#39;d start this interview by simply asking you to post the poem, &quot;Time, Travels.&quot;&#0160;</p> <p>Time, Travels</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; <em>Time and space</em> <em>are modes by which we think, and not conditions in which we live <br />&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;</em><em>—</em>Albert Einstein</p> <p>As the train pulls away, Albert waves at her window, watches until the last car disappears down the track, his time with the woman like a chapter in a book he’s been writing. When he lifts the pencil, the ideas don’t stop, just as the woman, in her own world, rolls on into her future. Looking back down the track, he sees the past is much the same, a story to wander in memory or bring to life again by writing down. In that way, the past is ever-present. He takes the stairs out of the station into the familiar streets, enjoying the walk, the early evening air, looking forward to getting back to his desk.</p> <p>Through the dirty glass he is such a small man on the platform, waving, growing smaller, then gone. As the train gathers speed, she is alone at last with her thoughts. A remarkable person. An unforgettable trip. Once she’s home, she’ll write down every word.</p> <p>SA: Thank you, and thanks for your interest. “Time, Travels” is the third in a brief series of speculative pieces about hanging out with Einstein that form an organizational strategy for the book’s adventure with relativity.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e434f200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="9781602260214" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e434f200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e434f200b-800wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="9781602260214" /></a>NA: Tell me how the idea for this book came to you.</p> <p>SA: In the book’s preface, I explain how in the process of working on this collection, I became interested in Einstein and was given a book he wrote by a physicist friend. In the book, Einstein tries to simplify his theory of general relativity, and there I began to see connections to my own interests in time, space, and memory. It was Einstein’s famous “thought experiments,” a series of metaphors involving the movement of trains and clocks, that captivated me and helped shape this book in a way I hope reflects an experience of spacetime.</p> <p>NA: One of my favorite poems in the book is “Waves, Cinque Terra,&quot; and I was wondering how that fit into the theme of the book.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Waves, Cinque Terra</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; <em>Say yes, then no, then no again <br />&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;&#0160;—</em>Pablo Neruda</p> <p>On the shore in Cinque Terra down the cliff from the trail between Manarola and Corniglia, even though we have a train to catch and lodging to secure, we sit down on midnight colored rocks where the Mediterranean rolls in tumbling them, a rhythmic rush and clatter, rush-clatter. I begin to stack the stones as high as I can, large to small. My son and his friend strip to their underwear, dive, swim, the late afternoon sun on water-splash makes an apparition like silver—they call, beckon me <em>come in!&#0160;</em>Their bodies, their voices too a kind of silver.</p> <p>How I wanted. How I always will.</p> <p>SA: It’s so great to hear which poems connect with people, so thanks for that. As you know, the collection is exploring the theory of general relativity, and embedded in the concept of spacetime is the intimation of time travel. The experience of a moment that we want never to end, or one that remains crystalline in memory, or in a photograph, or even recreated in a poem, resonates throughout the collection I think. In this poem, the speaker views a particular instant as almost outside of time. While she allows herself to experience the “rush-clatter” presence, perhaps unconsciously she simultaneously stacks stones building a shrine to memorialize it. However in doing so, she fails to fully&#0160;immerse herself in the larger experience the way the children do. The speaker realizes this paradox, that in holding on to an experience is in some way to lose the experience itself. Neruda’s quote suggests this paradox as well. Can we stop time? “Yes . . . no . . . no,” though maybe yes, again? I’m giving you a retrospective explanation since I don’t compose analytically, but looking at it now, that’s how I’d explain the connection.&#0160;</p> <p>NA: And then there is your poem, &quot;Revolutions.&quot; And&#0160;I love this poem, in part because I think it argues with <em>the idea that the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.&#0160;</em>But maybe I’m not reading it correctly?</p> <p>Revolutions</p> <p>After sundown, the new moon makes a watermark in the sky, and off to the south a comet leaves a thumbprint of its journey past the planet back to its further orbit in space, time’s ancient minutes frozen in a trail of dust and ice. The moon sets, the comet fades, and all is as before. Which is a lie.</p> <p>SA: Well, I like your explanation because it demonstrates the circular possibilities of time, where the past, present, and future merge and can be seen to inhabit those frames nearly simultaneously, relative, of course, to your point of view.</p> <p>NA: And finally, there is the beautiful poem, &quot;I have no proof that Lisbon exists&quot; that I&#39;d love to close with, and hear you talk about.</p> <p>I have no proof that Lisbon exists&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;—Fernando Pessoa</p> <p>only waking dreams, like the cry of a gull<br />echoing in an alley or the lingering smoke<br />from a cigarette. Or, an imaginary war<br />that never occurs in your homeland though<br />everybody bleeds. The idea of Lisbon<br />is like that, like listening to someone who says<br />No, then Yes, each moment changing direction,<br />swallows darting mid-sky. And it’s summer always<br />in such a place that can’t exist. You walk<br />on pavement stones slick with heat, the streets<br />a school of fish flashing through the city<br />in every direction. They rise under your feet.<br />This is the dream part, when the trolley turns the corner<br />shaking like loose change and the river<br />opens before you, behind you the hills—a fine<br />specter, glazed with unerring light.</p> <p><em>Saudade</em>, someone might say. Saudade is not<br />to be alone as I am alone, but to be apart.<br />Absence is proof of nothing, neither is its phantom pain.<br />It is a memory stolen from another language&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;<br />you find you are unable to speak.</p> <p>SA: I love working with a quote as a title vs. an epigraph, almost creating a collaborative dialog within the poem. There is so much to say here that I find the poem’s last line truer than ever. To have found Pessoa’s statement while reading his <em>Book of Disquiet&#0160;</em>during a stay in Lisbon where I was surrounded by the vivid, strange, and wonderful specific details listed here was profound. And uncanny. Pessoa speaking from the past into an unimagined now in the much-the-same city streets that I would soon leave to my own past was not only “disquieting,” but evocative of the weirdness of time and therefore our human experience. If we pay attention to it. We live our lives in a dimension we cannot comprehend. And then again, that Neruda reference slips in, an unsettling but satisfying ambiguity.</p> <p>Thanks for giving me a chance to talk about the work!</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e43c9200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Author_ashton_sally" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e43c9200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e43c9200b-800wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Author_ashton_sally" /></a>Sally Ashton is editor-in-chief of&#0160;<em>DMQ Review,</em>&#0160;an online journal featuring poetry and art. She has taught creative writing at San Jose State University and through UC Santa Cruz Extension, and&#0160;has led more than 100 workshops including with Disquiet: International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal.</p> <p>Writing across genres, in collaboration with artists, and specializing in short prose forms, she is the author of four books including the just-released <em>The Behavior of Clocks</em>. Her work also appears in&#0160;<em>An Introduction to the Prose Poem,</em> in <em>Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes,</em>&#0160;in the best-seller <em>Poems for the 99 Percent,&#0160;</em>and is forthcoming in&#0160;<em>A Cast-iron Aeoroplane that Actually Flies: Commentaries from 80&#0160;American Poets on their Prose Poems<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, Serif;">.</span></em></p> <p><em>The featured poems are from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Behaviour-Clocks-Sally-Ashton/dp/1602260214/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sally+ashton&amp;qid=1554763334&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1">The Behavior of Clocks</a> by Sally Ashton (<a href="https://sallyashton.com/">sallyashton.com</a>), published by WordFarm. Copyright 2019 by Sally Ashton. Used with permission from WordFarm (<a href="http://wordfarm.net">Wordfarm.net</a>).&#0160;</em></p> <p>NA: Congratulations on your new book, <em>The Behavior of Clocks!</em>&#0160;I thought I&#39;d start this interview by simply asking you to post the poem, &quot;Time, Travels.&quot;&#0160;</p> <p>Time, Travels</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; <em>Time and space</em> <em>are modes by which we think, and not conditions in which we live <br />&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;</em><em>—</em>Albert Einstein</p> <p>As the train pulls away, Albert waves at her window, watches until the last car disappears down the track, his time with the woman like a chapter in a book he’s been writing. When he lifts the pencil, the ideas don’t stop, just as the woman, in her own world, rolls on into her future. Looking back down the track, he sees the past is much the same, a story to wander in memory or bring to life again by writing down. In that way, the past is ever-present. He takes the stairs out of the station into the familiar streets, enjoying the walk, the early evening air, looking forward to getting back to his desk.</p> <p>Through the dirty glass he is such a small man on the platform, waving, growing smaller, then gone. As the train gathers speed, she is alone at last with her thoughts. A remarkable person. An unforgettable trip. Once she’s home, she’ll write down every word.</p> <p>SA: Thank you, and thanks for your interest. “Time, Travels” is the third in a brief series of speculative pieces about hanging out with Einstein that form an organizational strategy for the book’s adventure with relativity.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e434f200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="9781602260214" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e434f200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e434f200b-800wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="9781602260214" /></a>NA: Tell me how the idea for this book came to you.</p> <p>SA: In the book’s preface, I explain how in the process of working on this collection, I became interested in Einstein and was given a book he wrote by a physicist friend. In the book, Einstein tries to simplify his theory of general relativity, and there I began to see connections to my own interests in time, space, and memory. It was Einstein’s famous “thought experiments,” a series of metaphors involving the movement of trains and clocks, that captivated me and helped shape this book in a way I hope reflects an experience of spacetime.</p> <p>NA: One of my favorite poems in the book is “Waves, Cinque Terra,&quot; and I was wondering how that fit into the theme of the book.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Waves, Cinque Terra</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; <em>Say yes, then no, then no again <br />&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;&#0160;—</em>Pablo Neruda</p> <p>On the shore in Cinque Terra down the cliff from the trail between Manarola and Corniglia, even though we have a train to catch and lodging to secure, we sit down on midnight colored rocks where the Mediterranean rolls in tumbling them, a rhythmic rush and clatter, rush-clatter. I begin to stack the stones as high as I can, large to small. My son and his friend strip to their underwear, dive, swim, the late afternoon sun on water-splash makes an apparition like silver—they call, beckon me <em>come in!&#0160;</em>Their bodies, their voices too a kind of silver.</p> <p>How I wanted. How I always will.</p> <p>SA: It’s so great to hear which poems connect with people, so thanks for that. As you know, the collection is exploring the theory of general relativity, and embedded in the concept of spacetime is the intimation of time travel. The experience of a moment that we want never to end, or one that remains crystalline in memory, or in a photograph, or even recreated in a poem, resonates throughout the collection I think. In this poem, the speaker views a particular instant as almost outside of time. While she allows herself to experience the “rush-clatter” presence, perhaps unconsciously she simultaneously stacks stones building a shrine to memorialize it. However in doing so, she fails to fully&#0160;immerse herself in the larger experience the way the children do. The speaker realizes this paradox, that in holding on to an experience is in some way to lose the experience itself. Neruda’s quote suggests this paradox as well. Can we stop time? “Yes . . . no . . . no,” though maybe yes, again? I’m giving you a retrospective explanation since I don’t compose analytically, but looking at it now, that’s how I’d explain the connection.&#0160;</p> <p>NA: And then there is your poem, &quot;Revolutions.&quot; And&#0160;I love this poem, in part because I think it argues with <em>the idea that the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.&#0160;</em>But maybe I’m not reading it correctly?</p> <p>Revolutions</p> <p>After sundown, the new moon makes a watermark in the sky, and off to the south a comet leaves a thumbprint of its journey past the planet back to its further orbit in space, time’s ancient minutes frozen in a trail of dust and ice. The moon sets, the comet fades, and all is as before. Which is a lie.</p> <p>SA: Well, I like your explanation because it demonstrates the circular possibilities of time, where the past, present, and future merge and can be seen to inhabit those frames nearly simultaneously, relative, of course, to your point of view.</p> <p>NA: And finally, there is the beautiful poem, &quot;I have no proof that Lisbon exists&quot; that I&#39;d love to close with, and hear you talk about.</p> <p>I have no proof that Lisbon exists&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;—Fernando Pessoa</p> <p>only waking dreams, like the cry of a gull<br />echoing in an alley or the lingering smoke<br />from a cigarette. Or, an imaginary war<br />that never occurs in your homeland though<br />everybody bleeds. The idea of Lisbon<br />is like that, like listening to someone who says<br />No, then Yes, each moment changing direction,<br />swallows darting mid-sky. And it’s summer always<br />in such a place that can’t exist. You walk<br />on pavement stones slick with heat, the streets<br />a school of fish flashing through the city<br />in every direction. They rise under your feet.<br />This is the dream part, when the trolley turns the corner<br />shaking like loose change and the river<br />opens before you, behind you the hills—a fine<br />specter, glazed with unerring light.</p> <p><em>Saudade</em>, someone might say. Saudade is not<br />to be alone as I am alone, but to be apart.<br />Absence is proof of nothing, neither is its phantom pain.<br />It is a memory stolen from another language&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;<br />you find you are unable to speak.</p> <p>SA: I love working with a quote as a title vs. an epigraph, almost creating a collaborative dialog within the poem. There is so much to say here that I find the poem’s last line truer than ever. To have found Pessoa’s statement while reading his <em>Book of Disquiet&#0160;</em>during a stay in Lisbon where I was surrounded by the vivid, strange, and wonderful specific details listed here was profound. And uncanny. Pessoa speaking from the past into an unimagined now in the much-the-same city streets that I would soon leave to my own past was not only “disquieting,” but evocative of the weirdness of time and therefore our human experience. If we pay attention to it. We live our lives in a dimension we cannot comprehend. And then again, that Neruda reference slips in, an unsettling but satisfying ambiguity.</p> <p>Thanks for giving me a chance to talk about the work!</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e43c9200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Author_ashton_sally" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e43c9200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49e43c9200b-800wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Author_ashton_sally" /></a>Sally Ashton is editor-in-chief of&#0160;<em>DMQ Review,</em>&#0160;an online journal featuring poetry and art. She has taught creative writing at San Jose State University and through UC Santa Cruz Extension, and&#0160;has led more than 100 workshops including with Disquiet: International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal.</p> <p>Writing across genres, in collaboration with artists, and specializing in short prose forms, she is the author of four books including the just-released <em>The Behavior of Clocks</em>. Her work also appears in&#0160;<em>An Introduction to the Prose Poem,</em> in <em>Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes,</em>&#0160;in the best-seller <em>Poems for the 99 Percent,&#0160;</em>and is forthcoming in&#0160;<em>A Cast-iron Aeoroplane that Actually Flies: Commentaries from 80&#0160;American Poets on their Prose Poems<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, Serif;">.</span></em></p> <p><em>The featured poems are from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Behaviour-Clocks-Sally-Ashton/dp/1602260214/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sally+ashton&amp;qid=1554763334&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1">The Behavior of Clocks</a> by Sally Ashton (<a href="https://sallyashton.com/">sallyashton.com</a>), published by WordFarm. Copyright 2019 by Sally Ashton. Used with permission from WordFarm (<a href="http://wordfarm.net">Wordfarm.net</a>).&#0160;</em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d0240a477a10b200d Nin Andrews posted something https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2019-04-03T15:04:41Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b88330240a477a10a200dhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2019-04-03T15:04:41Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970dtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d0240a44e0701200c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2019-04-02T18:31:14Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b88330240a44e06ff200cFailing at Love 2.0 (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2019-04-02T18:31:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a44e05a2200c-pi"><img alt="Sapho poem of jealousy" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a44e05a2200c image-full img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a44e05a2200c-800wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Sapho poem of jealousy" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I love this Sappho poem of pure jealousy. I love the “kindled the flesh along my arms/ and smothered me in its smoke-blind rush.” I’m just realizing that many of my favorite poems celebrate the worst parts of our beings: jealousy, lust, rage.</p> <p>I am thinking about this because I have been reading this book,&#0160;<em>Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection</em>, a book recommended by my meditation instructor. The basic premise of the book is that love is not something you simply emanate like a yogi from a cave. Rather, you have to practice it in both small and big ways. The book suggests that you create micro-moments of love by engaging with people wherever&#0160;you go—the drug store, the post office,&#0160;the hairdresser, the sidewalk. Just imagine all the opportunities for micro-moments of love.&#0160;After many such moments, you can develop something called positive resonance. I picture it like a halo around me.</p> <p>Yeah, right.</p> <p>But the other day, I thought, what the hell. I might as well try it out. Supposedly, if you do this practice, you develop a well-toned vagal nerve.&#0160; And who doesn’t want a toned vagal nerve? So I gave it a shot. I went to the Y for a workout and started gabbing with everyone in sight. I don’t&#0160;like to chat when I work out, and people who talk too much give me hives. But I figured this was just an experiment. And besides hives, what’s the worst thing that could happen?</p> <p>First, I talked to a man who was recently divorced and was trying to sweat out his rage at his ex. (He reminded me of that George Bilgere poem, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/261rcn/general_what_i_want_by_george_bilgere">“What I Want”</a>). I didn’t really want to pursue that topic. So then I talked to a woman who hates her ass—okay, that was a little more interesting, and made me think of Lucille Clifton’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49487/homage-to-my-hip">“Homage to My Hips.”</a> &#0160;Next, I spoke to a lady who thinks the Y is some kind of preview of hell. She did have a few good points to make, especially about the sweaty deposits on the equipment (and yes, there’s <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/gym">a poem</a> for that, too.) Then, in the swimming pool, a man started telling me how to improve my swimming form. He said he could coach me a bit.&#0160;<em>Really?</em></p> <p>So what is it with men? I mean, what woman would tell a man she would like to coach him.&#0160;Seriously!</p> <p>(Afterwards, in the shower, I kept thinking of that wonderful poem, <a href="http://feministing.com/2014/04/21/your-daily-poem-jan-beatty/">“Shooter,”</a> by Jan Beatty.)</p> <p>Needless to say, I was failing at micro-moments of love. Or at least I wasn’t feeling it.</p> <p>And to make matters worse, the next day there were all these people trying to talk to me.&#0160;</p> <p>I put my headphones on and looked into the distance. I didn’t even have anything to listen to, but headphones are useful. I think of them now as a protection against micro-moments of love.&#0160;</p> <p>I thought of all my failed attempts at becoming a better human. I am literally a disaster. Then I thought of all the poets I love and how they celebrate their disastrous selves. Consider this poem by Julie Bruck from her book, <em>How to Avoid Huge Ships. </em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>To Janet in Jersey</p> <p><em>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;Dear Abby: Is it OK to put a paper towel holder in the bathroom?</em></p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;—Janet in Jersey</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Don’t ever hide your Bounty under the sink. Nor<br />your conflicted feelings about family members.<br />Remember the midwife who handed fawning new parents<br />their wet, perfect baby? <em>In six months</em>, she said,<br /><em>when you want to drop this child from a window, call me</em>.<br />Drink, Janet. Smoke, if it calms you. Take secret joy<br />in the failings of those who judge you. Judge them back,<br />if it gives you ballast. When you argue with your dead,<br />slap anyone who uses the word <em>closure.</em>&#0160; Rail, Janet,<br />rage against the body’s small betrayals. You know<br />they’re only practice for the big one to come. If others<br />are steeped in denial, that’s their problem. Pass gas.<br />Should someone instruct you in the art of breathing,<br />cut that person off for good. Chew your nails. Cheat at cards.<br />If you want a roll of paper towels in the bathroom,<br />Janet in Jersey, you get no argument from me. Fuck, yes!</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And this poem from Frank O’Hara’s <em>Lunch Poems </em>always makes me laugh.</p> <p><em>&#0160;</em></p> <p>Poem</p> <p><br />Wouldn’t it be funny<br />if the Finger had designed us<br />to shit just once a week?</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;all week long we’d get fatter<br />&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;and fatter and then on Sunday morning<br />&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;while everyone’s in church<br />&#0160;<br />&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;ploop !</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a44e05a2200c-pi"><img alt="Sapho poem of jealousy" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a44e05a2200c image-full img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a44e05a2200c-800wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Sapho poem of jealousy" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I love this Sappho poem of pure jealousy. I love the “kindled the flesh along my arms/ and smothered me in its smoke-blind rush.” I’m just realizing that many of my favorite poems celebrate the worst parts of our beings: jealousy, lust, rage.</p> <p>I am thinking about this because I have been reading this book,&#0160;<em>Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection</em>, a book recommended by my meditation instructor. The basic premise of the book is that love is not something you simply emanate like a yogi from a cave. Rather, you have to practice it in both small and big ways. The book suggests that you create micro-moments of love by engaging with people wherever&#0160;you go—the drug store, the post office,&#0160;the hairdresser, the sidewalk. Just imagine all the opportunities for micro-moments of love.&#0160;After many such moments, you can develop something called positive resonance. I picture it like a halo around me.</p> <p>Yeah, right.</p> <p>But the other day, I thought, what the hell. I might as well try it out. Supposedly, if you do this practice, you develop a well-toned vagal nerve.&#0160; And who doesn’t want a toned vagal nerve? So I gave it a shot. I went to the Y for a workout and started gabbing with everyone in sight. I don’t&#0160;like to chat when I work out, and people who talk too much give me hives. But I figured this was just an experiment. And besides hives, what’s the worst thing that could happen?</p> <p>First, I talked to a man who was recently divorced and was trying to sweat out his rage at his ex. (He reminded me of that George Bilgere poem, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/261rcn/general_what_i_want_by_george_bilgere">“What I Want”</a>). I didn’t really want to pursue that topic. So then I talked to a woman who hates her ass—okay, that was a little more interesting, and made me think of Lucille Clifton’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49487/homage-to-my-hip">“Homage to My Hips.”</a> &#0160;Next, I spoke to a lady who thinks the Y is some kind of preview of hell. She did have a few good points to make, especially about the sweaty deposits on the equipment (and yes, there’s <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/gym">a poem</a> for that, too.) Then, in the swimming pool, a man started telling me how to improve my swimming form. He said he could coach me a bit.&#0160;<em>Really?</em></p> <p>So what is it with men? I mean, what woman would tell a man she would like to coach him.&#0160;Seriously!</p> <p>(Afterwards, in the shower, I kept thinking of that wonderful poem, <a href="http://feministing.com/2014/04/21/your-daily-poem-jan-beatty/">“Shooter,”</a> by Jan Beatty.)</p> <p>Needless to say, I was failing at micro-moments of love. Or at least I wasn’t feeling it.</p> <p>And to make matters worse, the next day there were all these people trying to talk to me.&#0160;</p> <p>I put my headphones on and looked into the distance. I didn’t even have anything to listen to, but headphones are useful. I think of them now as a protection against micro-moments of love.&#0160;</p> <p>I thought of all my failed attempts at becoming a better human. I am literally a disaster. Then I thought of all the poets I love and how they celebrate their disastrous selves. Consider this poem by Julie Bruck from her book, <em>How to Avoid Huge Ships. </em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>To Janet in Jersey</p> <p><em>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;Dear Abby: Is it OK to put a paper towel holder in the bathroom?</em></p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;—Janet in Jersey</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Don’t ever hide your Bounty under the sink. Nor<br />your conflicted feelings about family members.<br />Remember the midwife who handed fawning new parents<br />their wet, perfect baby? <em>In six months</em>, she said,<br /><em>when you want to drop this child from a window, call me</em>.<br />Drink, Janet. Smoke, if it calms you. Take secret joy<br />in the failings of those who judge you. Judge them back,<br />if it gives you ballast. When you argue with your dead,<br />slap anyone who uses the word <em>closure.</em>&#0160; Rail, Janet,<br />rage against the body’s small betrayals. You know<br />they’re only practice for the big one to come. If others<br />are steeped in denial, that’s their problem. Pass gas.<br />Should someone instruct you in the art of breathing,<br />cut that person off for good. Chew your nails. Cheat at cards.<br />If you want a roll of paper towels in the bathroom,<br />Janet in Jersey, you get no argument from me. Fuck, yes!</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And this poem from Frank O’Hara’s <em>Lunch Poems </em>always makes me laugh.</p> <p><em>&#0160;</em></p> <p>Poem</p> <p><br />Wouldn’t it be funny<br />if the Finger had designed us<br />to shit just once a week?</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;all week long we’d get fatter<br />&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;and fatter and then on Sunday morning<br />&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;while everyone’s in church<br />&#0160;<br />&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;ploop !</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d0240a447d141200c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2019-03-18T21:10:22Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d13f200cNew Dominion Bookshop, A Poet's Bookshop (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2019-03-18T21:10:21Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<h3 class="entry-header">&#0160;</h3> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry-body"> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470e45a200d-pi"><img alt="Storefront (1)" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470e45a200d image-full img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470e45a200d-800wi" title="Storefront (1)" /></a></p> <p>A little over a year ago, I moved from Poland, Ohio, to Charlottesville, Virginia, and I barely recognize the sleepy university town where I grew up. At times I even feel a little homesick for Ohio. But one of the great joys of moving back is visiting New Dominion Bookshop, the oldest independent bookshop in the state and a bookshop with an extensive poetry section (located at the front of store—not in the basement or the some dark corner where poetry books are usually found). As a teen, I worked at New Dominion but the shop, like the city, has been transformed. It is now owned by Julia Kudravetz, <a href="https://streetlightmag.com/2015/01/11/conveyance-by-julia-kudravetz/">a poet.</a>&#0160; Her marketing director, Sarah Crossland<a href="https://bostonreview.net/poetry/2012-poetry-contest-winner-sarah-crossland"></a>, is also <a href="https://www.missourireview.com/sarah-crossland-litanies/">a poet</a>. Maybe it’s no surprise then that the shop has become a happening place for poets and writers, particularly during the one week in March when the city hosts <a href="https://www.vabook.org">the Virginia Festival of the Book</a>, which is this week!</p> <p>I am so excited about New Dominion Bookshop and <a href="https://ndbookshop.com/new-dominion-events-at-festival-of-the-book-2019/">the upcoming events</a> at the Festival, I thought I’d interview Julia Kudravetz and Sarah Crossland.</p> <p>NA: First, Julia, I want to thank you, not only for running the bookshop, but also for opening it up to so many events. What inspired you to buy New Dominion? How does a poet go from teaching and running workshops and readings to becoming the owner of a bookshop?</p> <p>JK: Thanks so much for interviewing us! I think it has been a long and winding road, so to speak, to being owner of an historic independent bookshop. Everything we do prepares us in some ways for the next task, but in my case, I first got involved in the bookshop through a poetry and fiction reading series that I hosted called the Charlottesville Reading Series. We held it monthly at a nearby artspace, and when a poet or a writer was on booktour, I wanted to be able to sell the book, so I asked Carol Troxell (the former owner) if I could start selling books from New Dominion at the event. From there I began working occasional shifts at the shop and doing their social media. When Carol Troxell passed away suddenly two years ago, I wrote to her husband and asked if he would consider hiring me as the manager, and if that went well I would buy the shop. At the time I was teaching college composition courses during the week, but I finished out the school year and began my job as the manager the day after classes ended. It’s been nonstop since! It’s true that it’s a big switch to go from teaching to managing a business, but in some ways teaching skills translate really well into dealing with the public—you have to be able to talk to people, to understand their needs and what they are looking for, and of course you must be patient and confident even when you’re feeling overwhelmed by it all. I also think that teaching and managing have a lot in common—you have to have a good relationship with a student or employee before you can really ask them to learn new and sometimes difficult skills to keep the shop going.</p> <p>I am really grateful that I can lead this beautiful bookshop into the next century, that there is a loyal and growing clientele, and that I have such a cool and committed staff, pictured below. I’m also just incredibly lucky to have bought the shop during a time when indies are seeing a resurgence.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d054200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Rose Garden" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d054200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d054200c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Rose Garden" /></a>NA: Sarah, could you tell me how you came to work in the bookshop? What brought you here? How do you keep the magic of this bookshop alive?</p> <p>SC:&#0160;Of course, it&#39;s magical when your job perfectly aligns with your writing career. After my MFA in poetry, I managed the classes and programs at WriterHouse, the local creative writing nonprofit in town, and then went on to work for Indie Film Minute, a radio program and website dedicated to promoting independent film. Along the way, I learned about the ways in which storytelling informs how we engage with brands. Also, I watched a lot of&#0160;<em>Mad Men</em>. When Julia purchased the shop in 2017, one of the things she wanted to focus on was building community outreach through events and marketing. We had met at a creative writing conference in 2011 and reconnected.&#0160;</p> <p>The bookshop is a hallowed place. But the best way to &quot;keep the magic alive&quot; is to keep on loving books ourselves. There&#39;s so much joy in recommending books, especially when it&#39;s someone&#39;s first encounter with a great book. My favorite was a time last fall when a quiet teenager came in and said he&#39;d just finished&#0160;<em>On the Road</em>, and he didn&#39;t know what to read next. I handed him&#0160;<em>Howl</em>, which he had never heard of before. This is what we do at independent bookstores.</p> <p>NA: &#0160;New Dominion also hosts a teen reading series? I heard something about PBS doing a spot on the shop?</p> <p>JK:&#0160;Yes! Last September the local PBS program “Charlottesville Inside Out” did a profile on our shop highlighting our new teen reading series, Friday Night Writes. It’s an opportunity for young unpublished writers to share their work in an accepting group of other young artists. As the series has evolved, it’s turned into more and more young musicians singing their original songs, and that’s cool—I imagine it will grow and change over time, and I’m not sure what the end result will be, but as long as we have young people discovering the shop and being creative in this space I think the series will go on. The more age groups we can reach, the better for the health of our bookstore going into the future.</p> <p>NA: What is it like to run a bookshop in this day and age? Do you live, eat, breathe, dream books?</p> <p>JK:&#0160;I think it’s one of the most difficult and rewarding things I have ever done. Running a bookshop means you wear so many hats because the shop is a cultural gathering place as well as a place of business.&#0160; It’s wonderful to see the lists of books coming out and make decisions about how many to buy for the store (and think which customers might want them!).&#0160; Other days all I think about is how to pay the cleaners and if I’ve paid the sales tax yet for the month. In a larger business, I suppose these tasks—the book buying and the business side—are a little more differentiated—but I like having a little of everything to do. Things certainly never get boring, and sometimes it feels like being in a play—as soon as one character goes out the door, another one comes in with their incredible story. I have lots of material for a memoir already!</p> <p>NA: Could you list the poets who will be reading here at the festival?</p> <p>JK: Sure! New Dominion tries to host a lot of the poetry and literary fiction during the festival. Poets reading at the shop or at offsite events we are co-hosting include: Steve Cushman, Molly Minturn, Kirstin Rembold, Joelle Bielle, Kyle Dargan, DaMarris Hill, Alyson Hagy, Maggie Anderson, Kevin Prufer, Melissa Stein, Sherman Bitsui, Diana Nguyen, Francesca Bell, Lindsay Bernal, and Remica Bingham Risher.</p> <p>What an amazing group to be reading over a period of only four days here!</p> <p>NA: I&#39;d love to close with a recommendation for a new poetry book—a recent discovery perhaps?</p> <p>JK: I really enjoyed Lindsay Bernal’s new collection <em>What It Doesn’t Have to Do With</em>. The poems are funny and smart and sad and beautiful. It’s just a great book. And the poet is reading during the festival!</p> <p>SC: I&#39;m currently reading William Brewer&#39;s startlingly gorgeous and heartbreaking poetry collection&#0160;<em>I Know Your Kind</em>, which is about the opioid crisis in West Virginia. This isn&#39;t&#0160;<em>really&#0160;</em>poetry (okay, not at all), but I had to slip in a recommendation for the other book I&#39;m currently reading,&#0160;<em>The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs</em>&#0160;by Stephen L. Brusatte--it will definitely find its way into a poem soon enough.<a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49594f3200b-pi"><br /></a></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470fad5200d-pi"><img alt="IMG_2469" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470fad5200d image-full img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470fad5200d-800wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="IMG_2469" /></a></p> <p><em>Julia Kudravetz is the owner and general manager of New Dominion Bookshop and a writer.&#0160; A Charlottesville native, she has taught college and high school English&#0160; is the founder of the Charlottesville Reading Series. She holds an MFA from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d001200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Author photo vertical" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d001200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d001200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Author photo vertical" /></a><em>Sarah Crossland is the recipient of the 2012 Boston Review Poetry Prize, a 2013 AWP Intro Journals Award, and the 2013 Pablo Neruda Prize. Her poems&#0160;have been published in&#0160;The Missouri Review,&#0160;Crazyhorse,&#0160;Boston Review,&#0160;TriQuarterly,&#0160;The Iowa Review,&#0160;A Public Space,&#0160;Denver Quarterly,&#0160;Guernica, and other journals. She is currently working on finishing a collection of poetry about the Romanov daughters, called&#0160;The Winter Palace.&#0160;She lives in Charlottesville, VA, where she works as the marketing and communications director at New Dominion Bookshop. You can find more of her poetry at&#0160;<a href="http://sarahcrossland.com/">sarahcrossland.com</a>.</em></p> </div> </div> <h3 class="entry-header">&#0160;</h3> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry-body"> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470e45a200d-pi"><img alt="Storefront (1)" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470e45a200d image-full img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470e45a200d-800wi" title="Storefront (1)" /></a></p> <p>A little over a year ago, I moved from Poland, Ohio, to Charlottesville, Virginia, and I barely recognize the sleepy university town where I grew up. At times I even feel a little homesick for Ohio. But one of the great joys of moving back is visiting New Dominion Bookshop, the oldest independent bookshop in the state and a bookshop with an extensive poetry section (located at the front of store—not in the basement or the some dark corner where poetry books are usually found). As a teen, I worked at New Dominion but the shop, like the city, has been transformed. It is now owned by Julia Kudravetz, <a href="https://streetlightmag.com/2015/01/11/conveyance-by-julia-kudravetz/">a poet.</a>&#0160; Her marketing director, Sarah Crossland<a href="https://bostonreview.net/poetry/2012-poetry-contest-winner-sarah-crossland"></a>, is also <a href="https://www.missourireview.com/sarah-crossland-litanies/">a poet</a>. Maybe it’s no surprise then that the shop has become a happening place for poets and writers, particularly during the one week in March when the city hosts <a href="https://www.vabook.org">the Virginia Festival of the Book</a>, which is this week!</p> <p>I am so excited about New Dominion Bookshop and <a href="https://ndbookshop.com/new-dominion-events-at-festival-of-the-book-2019/">the upcoming events</a> at the Festival, I thought I’d interview Julia Kudravetz and Sarah Crossland.</p> <p>NA: First, Julia, I want to thank you, not only for running the bookshop, but also for opening it up to so many events. What inspired you to buy New Dominion? How does a poet go from teaching and running workshops and readings to becoming the owner of a bookshop?</p> <p>JK: Thanks so much for interviewing us! I think it has been a long and winding road, so to speak, to being owner of an historic independent bookshop. Everything we do prepares us in some ways for the next task, but in my case, I first got involved in the bookshop through a poetry and fiction reading series that I hosted called the Charlottesville Reading Series. We held it monthly at a nearby artspace, and when a poet or a writer was on booktour, I wanted to be able to sell the book, so I asked Carol Troxell (the former owner) if I could start selling books from New Dominion at the event. From there I began working occasional shifts at the shop and doing their social media. When Carol Troxell passed away suddenly two years ago, I wrote to her husband and asked if he would consider hiring me as the manager, and if that went well I would buy the shop. At the time I was teaching college composition courses during the week, but I finished out the school year and began my job as the manager the day after classes ended. It’s been nonstop since! It’s true that it’s a big switch to go from teaching to managing a business, but in some ways teaching skills translate really well into dealing with the public—you have to be able to talk to people, to understand their needs and what they are looking for, and of course you must be patient and confident even when you’re feeling overwhelmed by it all. I also think that teaching and managing have a lot in common—you have to have a good relationship with a student or employee before you can really ask them to learn new and sometimes difficult skills to keep the shop going.</p> <p>I am really grateful that I can lead this beautiful bookshop into the next century, that there is a loyal and growing clientele, and that I have such a cool and committed staff, pictured below. I’m also just incredibly lucky to have bought the shop during a time when indies are seeing a resurgence.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d054200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Rose Garden" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d054200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d054200c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Rose Garden" /></a>NA: Sarah, could you tell me how you came to work in the bookshop? What brought you here? How do you keep the magic of this bookshop alive?</p> <p>SC:&#0160;Of course, it&#39;s magical when your job perfectly aligns with your writing career. After my MFA in poetry, I managed the classes and programs at WriterHouse, the local creative writing nonprofit in town, and then went on to work for Indie Film Minute, a radio program and website dedicated to promoting independent film. Along the way, I learned about the ways in which storytelling informs how we engage with brands. Also, I watched a lot of&#0160;<em>Mad Men</em>. When Julia purchased the shop in 2017, one of the things she wanted to focus on was building community outreach through events and marketing. We had met at a creative writing conference in 2011 and reconnected.&#0160;</p> <p>The bookshop is a hallowed place. But the best way to &quot;keep the magic alive&quot; is to keep on loving books ourselves. There&#39;s so much joy in recommending books, especially when it&#39;s someone&#39;s first encounter with a great book. My favorite was a time last fall when a quiet teenager came in and said he&#39;d just finished&#0160;<em>On the Road</em>, and he didn&#39;t know what to read next. I handed him&#0160;<em>Howl</em>, which he had never heard of before. This is what we do at independent bookstores.</p> <p>NA: &#0160;New Dominion also hosts a teen reading series? I heard something about PBS doing a spot on the shop?</p> <p>JK:&#0160;Yes! Last September the local PBS program “Charlottesville Inside Out” did a profile on our shop highlighting our new teen reading series, Friday Night Writes. It’s an opportunity for young unpublished writers to share their work in an accepting group of other young artists. As the series has evolved, it’s turned into more and more young musicians singing their original songs, and that’s cool—I imagine it will grow and change over time, and I’m not sure what the end result will be, but as long as we have young people discovering the shop and being creative in this space I think the series will go on. The more age groups we can reach, the better for the health of our bookstore going into the future.</p> <p>NA: What is it like to run a bookshop in this day and age? Do you live, eat, breathe, dream books?</p> <p>JK:&#0160;I think it’s one of the most difficult and rewarding things I have ever done. Running a bookshop means you wear so many hats because the shop is a cultural gathering place as well as a place of business.&#0160; It’s wonderful to see the lists of books coming out and make decisions about how many to buy for the store (and think which customers might want them!).&#0160; Other days all I think about is how to pay the cleaners and if I’ve paid the sales tax yet for the month. In a larger business, I suppose these tasks—the book buying and the business side—are a little more differentiated—but I like having a little of everything to do. Things certainly never get boring, and sometimes it feels like being in a play—as soon as one character goes out the door, another one comes in with their incredible story. I have lots of material for a memoir already!</p> <p>NA: Could you list the poets who will be reading here at the festival?</p> <p>JK: Sure! New Dominion tries to host a lot of the poetry and literary fiction during the festival. Poets reading at the shop or at offsite events we are co-hosting include: Steve Cushman, Molly Minturn, Kirstin Rembold, Joelle Bielle, Kyle Dargan, DaMarris Hill, Alyson Hagy, Maggie Anderson, Kevin Prufer, Melissa Stein, Sherman Bitsui, Diana Nguyen, Francesca Bell, Lindsay Bernal, and Remica Bingham Risher.</p> <p>What an amazing group to be reading over a period of only four days here!</p> <p>NA: I&#39;d love to close with a recommendation for a new poetry book—a recent discovery perhaps?</p> <p>JK: I really enjoyed Lindsay Bernal’s new collection <em>What It Doesn’t Have to Do With</em>. The poems are funny and smart and sad and beautiful. It’s just a great book. And the poet is reading during the festival!</p> <p>SC: I&#39;m currently reading William Brewer&#39;s startlingly gorgeous and heartbreaking poetry collection&#0160;<em>I Know Your Kind</em>, which is about the opioid crisis in West Virginia. This isn&#39;t&#0160;<em>really&#0160;</em>poetry (okay, not at all), but I had to slip in a recommendation for the other book I&#39;m currently reading,&#0160;<em>The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs</em>&#0160;by Stephen L. Brusatte--it will definitely find its way into a poem soon enough.<a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a49594f3200b-pi"><br /></a></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470fad5200d-pi"><img alt="IMG_2469" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470fad5200d image-full img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a470fad5200d-800wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="IMG_2469" /></a></p> <p><em>Julia Kudravetz is the owner and general manager of New Dominion Bookshop and a writer.&#0160; A Charlottesville native, she has taught college and high school English&#0160; is the founder of the Charlottesville Reading Series. She holds an MFA from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d001200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Author photo vertical" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d001200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330240a447d001200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Author photo vertical" /></a><em>Sarah Crossland is the recipient of the 2012 Boston Review Poetry Prize, a 2013 AWP Intro Journals Award, and the 2013 Pablo Neruda Prize. Her poems&#0160;have been published in&#0160;The Missouri Review,&#0160;Crazyhorse,&#0160;Boston Review,&#0160;TriQuarterly,&#0160;The Iowa Review,&#0160;A Public Space,&#0160;Denver Quarterly,&#0160;Guernica, and other journals. She is currently working on finishing a collection of poetry about the Romanov daughters, called&#0160;The Winter Palace.&#0160;She lives in Charlottesville, VA, where she works as the marketing and communications director at New Dominion Bookshop. You can find more of her poetry at&#0160;<a href="http://sarahcrossland.com/">sarahcrossland.com</a>.</em></p> </div> </div>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad38da80b200c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2019-01-21T00:45:08Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad38da809200cWhat Is the Great Test of any Poem? (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2019-01-21T00:45:08Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>&#0160;</p> <p>Reading<span class="apple-converted-space">&#0160;</span><u><a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2019/01/michael-dirda-reviews-the-best-american-poetry-2018.html">Michael Dirda’s review<span class="apple-converted-space">&#0160;</span></a></u>&#0160;of<span class="apple-converted-space">&#0160;</span><em>Best American Poetry 2018</em>, I was stopped by these sentences: <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b3826d200d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Test 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b3826d200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b3826d200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Test 2" /></a><br /><br /></p> <p><em>The great test of any poem is simply </em>Would I like to learn this by heart? <em>Alas, nothing here quite merits that reward, though Dick Davis’s autumnal reflections in “A Personal Sonnet” come close.</em></p> <p>I asked myself,<span class="apple-converted-space">&#0160;</span><em>Really?<br /></em></p> <p>That seems like such a limited view of both poetry and poetry appreciation. But it made me wonder: What is the great test of any poem? Especially now when, as Dana Gioia asks in the introduction:&#0160;<em>How do you measure something that won’t hold still? American poetry is now so large, so complex, and dynamic that no one can actually describe it.</em></p> <p>I thought about the first poem I ever fell in love with: Hopkins “The Windhover.” I was thirteen, recovering from eye surgery, and my mother read it aloud to me. I had no idea what the poem was about, nor was my mother interested in explaining it. But somehow the sound of it broke inside me like a wave.</p> <p><em>I caught this morning morning&#39; minion, kingdom</em><br /><em>of daylight&#39;s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding</em><br /><em>Of the rolling &#0160;level underneath him steady air . . .&#0160;</em></p> <p>I remember looking out the hospital window at swarms of birds and feeling this strange sense of magic and awe overwhelming me. Maybe it was just the aftermath of anesthesia. But I like to think the poem gave me what I call a Namaste experience in poetry—something like the experience I feel when watching this little movie sent to me by Nancy Mitchell:</p> <p class="asset-video"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="361" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/312395943" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></p> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/312395943">IMG_5340</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user18197377">Nathalie Andrews</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> <p>In other words, I felt as if Hopkins was offering some of the mystical wonder within himself to the mystic in me.&#0160;And I had a similar experience with some of the poems in this year’s anthology.</p> <p>When I read Tony Hoagland’s&#0160;“Into the Mystery,” which I read as a farewell poem to his readers (even if the Contributor Notes suggest otherwise), I felt such pangs of sadness and gratitude for this poem and for all of his many, beautiful poems. I was also stunned by the poems, “Angels in the Sun” by Ruben Quesada. “Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen,&quot; by Dante Di Stefano, and “Pied Beauty,” by Nausheen Eusuf, “Invitation&quot; by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, &quot;Walking Home&quot; by Marie Howe.&#0160;</p> <p>I am such a fan of Terrance&#0160;Hayes, and so, not surprisingly, I thought his &quot;American Sonnet from My Past and Future Assassin,&quot; was brilliant. I especially loved his description of Sylvia Plath: “My hunch is that Sylvia Plath was not/ Especially fun company. A drama queen, thin-skinned,/ And skittery, she thought her poems were ordinary./ What do you call a visionary who does not recognize/ Her vision?”</p> <p>But I don’t mean to suggest that the anthology is full of uplifting or mystical poetry. In this day and age, it would be impossible not to include many poems that address our current political nightmare, poems like Frank Bidart’s, “Mourning What We Thought We Were,” Bruce Bond’s “Anthem” or Ilya Kaminsky’s “We Lived Happily During the War” and Christian Wiman’s “Assembly.”</p> <p>After reading those poems, you might need another interlude with Nancy&#39;s birds.&#0160;</p> <p>In any anthology, I always look for my favorite moment, and in this one I have a few, but I keep going back to two poems, Paul Hoover’s “I Am the Size of What I See” and a long poem by Robin Coste Lewis, “Using Black to Paint Light: Walking Through a Matisse Exhibit Thinking about the Arctic and Matthew Hensen.”</p> <p>And that brings me back to my first question. So what is the great test of poetry? And in this case, why do I love these poems so much? <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b37e30200d-pi" style="float: right;"></a></p> <p>I think the answer is simple. Because I can’t answer that question. If I could, I don&#39;t think I&#39;d like the poems nearly as much. In my opinion, there is no such thing as a test for love. Or poetry. There is no equation, no X plus Y = the best poetry. Beauty and magic defy easy explanations. But if I had to make up an answer, I might say that both poems make me dream. I will post Paul Hoover&#39;s poem first:</p> <p>I am the Size of What I See<br />&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;<em>---Fernando Pessoa</em></p> <p>You hurry but you are late<br />to every party and dinner date,<br />so naturally they begin without you.<br />Like a pale leaf through the window,<br />you make your entrance secretly.<br />Now you can shine in the corner<br />as quietly as any leaf,<br />rarely speaking and then in puzzles;<br />in English when they are in Spanish,<br />in cliff-edge when they are hanging.<br />They are the size of what they see,<br />swimming in their vocabularies<br />as desire and principal interest.</p> <p>You’re a bird too young to fly,<br />a map without its pink and salmon.<br />You’re so late you arrive on time,<br />and later slip out unnoticed,<br />not even a smudge on the glass.<br />They never knew what passed them.</p> <p>You walk to the absolute corner,<br />where the roof of the sky<br />meets the limit of the eye<br />and a breath lasts a lifetime.<br />Beautiful dreamer,<br />you’re the size of what you see.<br />The sky is the size of the sky,<br />and the sun is just the sun.<br />But a tree is the size of the flame<br />you hold in your fingers.</p> <p>What shirt to wear to eternity<br />and tomorrow to dinner?<br />And what size will it be?<br />You’re asking while you can.<br />There are things you can’t forget<br />like the life before this one.</p> <p>And this is end of Robin Coste Lewis’s long poem, “Using Black to Paint Light: Walking Through a Matisse Exhibit Thinking about the Arctic and Matthew Hensen.”</p> <p>When I look at photographs of Matisse, unable to walk, drawing on the wall from the bed, his charcoal tied to the end of a very long pole, I stop breathing.</p> <p>Him, I think, Yes. I could marry him.</p> <p>I could slip into his bed.</p> <p>We could talk about real things.</p> <p>I could be his dark line hovering above.</p> <p>We could watch the light turning the room every color.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Reading<span class="apple-converted-space">&#0160;</span><u><a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2019/01/michael-dirda-reviews-the-best-american-poetry-2018.html">Michael Dirda’s review<span class="apple-converted-space">&#0160;</span></a></u>&#0160;of<span class="apple-converted-space">&#0160;</span><em>Best American Poetry 2018</em>, I was stopped by these sentences: <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b3826d200d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Test 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b3826d200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b3826d200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Test 2" /></a><br /><br /></p> <p><em>The great test of any poem is simply </em>Would I like to learn this by heart? <em>Alas, nothing here quite merits that reward, though Dick Davis’s autumnal reflections in “A Personal Sonnet” come close.</em></p> <p>I asked myself,<span class="apple-converted-space">&#0160;</span><em>Really?<br /></em></p> <p>That seems like such a limited view of both poetry and poetry appreciation. But it made me wonder: What is the great test of any poem? Especially now when, as Dana Gioia asks in the introduction:&#0160;<em>How do you measure something that won’t hold still? American poetry is now so large, so complex, and dynamic that no one can actually describe it.</em></p> <p>I thought about the first poem I ever fell in love with: Hopkins “The Windhover.” I was thirteen, recovering from eye surgery, and my mother read it aloud to me. I had no idea what the poem was about, nor was my mother interested in explaining it. But somehow the sound of it broke inside me like a wave.</p> <p><em>I caught this morning morning&#39; minion, kingdom</em><br /><em>of daylight&#39;s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding</em><br /><em>Of the rolling &#0160;level underneath him steady air . . .&#0160;</em></p> <p>I remember looking out the hospital window at swarms of birds and feeling this strange sense of magic and awe overwhelming me. Maybe it was just the aftermath of anesthesia. But I like to think the poem gave me what I call a Namaste experience in poetry—something like the experience I feel when watching this little movie sent to me by Nancy Mitchell:</p> <p class="asset-video"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="361" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/312395943" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></p> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/312395943">IMG_5340</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user18197377">Nathalie Andrews</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> <p>In other words, I felt as if Hopkins was offering some of the mystical wonder within himself to the mystic in me.&#0160;And I had a similar experience with some of the poems in this year’s anthology.</p> <p>When I read Tony Hoagland’s&#0160;“Into the Mystery,” which I read as a farewell poem to his readers (even if the Contributor Notes suggest otherwise), I felt such pangs of sadness and gratitude for this poem and for all of his many, beautiful poems. I was also stunned by the poems, “Angels in the Sun” by Ruben Quesada. “Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen,&quot; by Dante Di Stefano, and “Pied Beauty,” by Nausheen Eusuf, “Invitation&quot; by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, &quot;Walking Home&quot; by Marie Howe.&#0160;</p> <p>I am such a fan of Terrance&#0160;Hayes, and so, not surprisingly, I thought his &quot;American Sonnet from My Past and Future Assassin,&quot; was brilliant. I especially loved his description of Sylvia Plath: “My hunch is that Sylvia Plath was not/ Especially fun company. A drama queen, thin-skinned,/ And skittery, she thought her poems were ordinary./ What do you call a visionary who does not recognize/ Her vision?”</p> <p>But I don’t mean to suggest that the anthology is full of uplifting or mystical poetry. In this day and age, it would be impossible not to include many poems that address our current political nightmare, poems like Frank Bidart’s, “Mourning What We Thought We Were,” Bruce Bond’s “Anthem” or Ilya Kaminsky’s “We Lived Happily During the War” and Christian Wiman’s “Assembly.”</p> <p>After reading those poems, you might need another interlude with Nancy&#39;s birds.&#0160;</p> <p>In any anthology, I always look for my favorite moment, and in this one I have a few, but I keep going back to two poems, Paul Hoover’s “I Am the Size of What I See” and a long poem by Robin Coste Lewis, “Using Black to Paint Light: Walking Through a Matisse Exhibit Thinking about the Arctic and Matthew Hensen.”</p> <p>And that brings me back to my first question. So what is the great test of poetry? And in this case, why do I love these poems so much? <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b37e30200d-pi" style="float: right;"></a></p> <p>I think the answer is simple. Because I can’t answer that question. If I could, I don&#39;t think I&#39;d like the poems nearly as much. In my opinion, there is no such thing as a test for love. Or poetry. There is no equation, no X plus Y = the best poetry. Beauty and magic defy easy explanations. But if I had to make up an answer, I might say that both poems make me dream. I will post Paul Hoover&#39;s poem first:</p> <p>I am the Size of What I See<br />&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;<em>---Fernando Pessoa</em></p> <p>You hurry but you are late<br />to every party and dinner date,<br />so naturally they begin without you.<br />Like a pale leaf through the window,<br />you make your entrance secretly.<br />Now you can shine in the corner<br />as quietly as any leaf,<br />rarely speaking and then in puzzles;<br />in English when they are in Spanish,<br />in cliff-edge when they are hanging.<br />They are the size of what they see,<br />swimming in their vocabularies<br />as desire and principal interest.</p> <p>You’re a bird too young to fly,<br />a map without its pink and salmon.<br />You’re so late you arrive on time,<br />and later slip out unnoticed,<br />not even a smudge on the glass.<br />They never knew what passed them.</p> <p>You walk to the absolute corner,<br />where the roof of the sky<br />meets the limit of the eye<br />and a breath lasts a lifetime.<br />Beautiful dreamer,<br />you’re the size of what you see.<br />The sky is the size of the sky,<br />and the sun is just the sun.<br />But a tree is the size of the flame<br />you hold in your fingers.</p> <p>What shirt to wear to eternity<br />and tomorrow to dinner?<br />And what size will it be?<br />You’re asking while you can.<br />There are things you can’t forget<br />like the life before this one.</p> <p>And this is end of Robin Coste Lewis’s long poem, “Using Black to Paint Light: Walking Through a Matisse Exhibit Thinking about the Arctic and Matthew Hensen.”</p> <p>When I look at photographs of Matisse, unable to walk, drawing on the wall from the bed, his charcoal tied to the end of a very long pole, I stop breathing.</p> <p>Him, I think, Yes. I could marry him.</p> <p>I could slip into his bed.</p> <p>We could talk about real things.</p> <p>I could be his dark line hovering above.</p> <p>We could watch the light turning the room every color.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad3abefdc200d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2019-01-04T19:09:31Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3abefda200d"Autobiography" by Karen Schuberthttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2019-01-04T19:09:30Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>In my recent posts, I’ve been talking a lot about confessional and autobiographical poetry. Last night I received an email asking me what I have against the confessional form. A short answer to that question I give in the first five minutes of this <a href="http://www.gracecavalieri.com/poetLaureates/featuredpoet_ninandrews.html">interview</a>&#0160;with Grace Cavalieri.&#0160; At a later date I might elaborate because I really do have a bone to pick with the so-called confessionalists. &#0160;But I thought instead I’d end the series on a lighter note with this wonderful poem by Karen Schubert, which won the William Dickey Memorial Broadside Contest in 2015, and which was inspired by her former professor, Philip Brady. Dr. Brady once advised his students: <em>Don’t be married to autobiography.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Autobiography</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Don’t be married to autobiography. <br />-Phil Brady</em></p> <p><em>I may be dating myself here…<br />-Anja Farin</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I am not married to Autobiography, but we are lovers. This is my first lesbian relationship. I’ve been trying to awaken my inner lesbian for years, but until now all I could muster was an artistic lust for the female figure. Autobiography is different, although she embarrasses me, won’t let me tell the story the way I want to. She reminds me about the wine stain on the satin chair, forgotten Mother’s Day cards, my fear of glass elevators. She makes fun of me, the gray tooth and the way one eye squeezes shut when I laugh. She says beauty is symmetrical. I am obsessed with Autobiography, call her late at night and leave message after message. I just want to hear her voice. I think she is two-timing me. I am afraid she will run off with the other woman. We fight. We make up. We go to our café, bookstore. Later, I will write about it. When Autobiography and I walk by people we know, they tremble.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3abef52200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_0923" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3abef52200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3abef52200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_0923" /></a>Karen Schubert is the author of five poetry chapbooks, most recently <em>Dear Youngstown</em> (NightBallet Press), <em>Black Sand Beach </em>(Kattywompus Press) and <em>I Left My Wings on a Chair</em> (Kent State Press), selected by Kathleen Flenniken for a Wick Poetry Center Chapbook Prize. Her poems and creative nonfiction appear in <em>Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Lake Effect Poetry</em> and <em>Winning Writers,</em> and performed at the Cleveland Humanities Festival and The Strand Project; awards include residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Headlands Center for the Arts. Schubert is director of Lit Youngstown, a literary arts nonprofit in Ohio.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>photo credit, Courtney Kensinger</p> <p>In my recent posts, I’ve been talking a lot about confessional and autobiographical poetry. Last night I received an email asking me what I have against the confessional form. A short answer to that question I give in the first five minutes of this <a href="http://www.gracecavalieri.com/poetLaureates/featuredpoet_ninandrews.html">interview</a>&#0160;with Grace Cavalieri.&#0160; At a later date I might elaborate because I really do have a bone to pick with the so-called confessionalists. &#0160;But I thought instead I’d end the series on a lighter note with this wonderful poem by Karen Schubert, which won the William Dickey Memorial Broadside Contest in 2015, and which was inspired by her former professor, Philip Brady. Dr. Brady once advised his students: <em>Don’t be married to autobiography.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Autobiography</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Don’t be married to autobiography. <br />-Phil Brady</em></p> <p><em>I may be dating myself here…<br />-Anja Farin</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I am not married to Autobiography, but we are lovers. This is my first lesbian relationship. I’ve been trying to awaken my inner lesbian for years, but until now all I could muster was an artistic lust for the female figure. Autobiography is different, although she embarrasses me, won’t let me tell the story the way I want to. She reminds me about the wine stain on the satin chair, forgotten Mother’s Day cards, my fear of glass elevators. She makes fun of me, the gray tooth and the way one eye squeezes shut when I laugh. She says beauty is symmetrical. I am obsessed with Autobiography, call her late at night and leave message after message. I just want to hear her voice. I think she is two-timing me. I am afraid she will run off with the other woman. We fight. We make up. We go to our café, bookstore. Later, I will write about it. When Autobiography and I walk by people we know, they tremble.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3abef52200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_0923" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3abef52200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3abef52200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_0923" /></a>Karen Schubert is the author of five poetry chapbooks, most recently <em>Dear Youngstown</em> (NightBallet Press), <em>Black Sand Beach </em>(Kattywompus Press) and <em>I Left My Wings on a Chair</em> (Kent State Press), selected by Kathleen Flenniken for a Wick Poetry Center Chapbook Prize. Her poems and creative nonfiction appear in <em>Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Lake Effect Poetry</em> and <em>Winning Writers,</em> and performed at the Cleveland Humanities Festival and The Strand Project; awards include residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Headlands Center for the Arts. Schubert is director of Lit Youngstown, a literary arts nonprofit in Ohio.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>photo credit, Courtney Kensinger</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad384a4ef200c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-12-30T22:12:43Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad384a4ed200cListening to Grace Cavalieri's Interview with Jorie Graham (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-12-30T22:12:42Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>I love this <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-poet-and-the-poem/id1375379498?mt=2">interview</a>&#0160;with Jorie Graham. I think it’s oddly seasonal,&#0160;&#0160;a perfect podcast to listen to now in the darkest time of the year, in the season of myth and magic. I love how Jorie Graham, like <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/12/an-interview-with-phillip-brady-by-nin-andrews.html">Philip Brady</a><em>,&#0160;</em>thinks in terms of our cultural beliefs.&#0160;</p> <p>If you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, at least listen to the opening when Jorie Graham describes how she imagines, when writing a poem, that she is trying to get the attention of an unwilling listener, or “a person such as a God who has heard every prayer already, every request, every outraged voice and is tired of humanity, and has turned his back or her back.&quot; She explains that “there is such a moment in the Bible that used to terrify me when I was younger, when Moses hides in a cleft of a rock and watches God’s back go by. And I used to think, God’s back? He turns his back on us?”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3ca577d200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Th-2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3ca577d200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3ca577d200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Th-2" /></a>Jorie Graham is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including the Forward Prize-winning and T.S. Eliot Prize-nominated&#0160;<em>Place</em>&#0160;(Ecco, 2012),&#0160;<em>From the New World: Poems 1976-2014</em>(2015),&#0160;<em>Sea Change</em>&#0160;(2008),&#0160;<em>Overlord</em>&#0160;(<wbr />HarperCollins, 2005);<em>&#0160;Never</em>&#0160;(HarperCollins, 2002);&#0160;<em>Swarm</em>(2000);<em>&#0160;The Errancy</em>&#0160;(1997);&#0160;<em>The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994</em>, which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry;&#0160;<em>Materialism (</em>1993);&#0160;<em>Region of Unlikeness</em>&#0160;(1991);<em>&#0160;The End of Beauty</em>&#0160;(1987);&#0160;<em>Erosion</em>&#0160;(1983); and&#0160;<em>Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts</em>&#0160;(1980). She has also edited two anthologies,&#0160;<em>Earth Took of Earth: 100 Great Poems of the English Language</em>&#0160;(1996) and<em>&#0160;The Best American Poetry 1990</em>. Her newest collection of poetry,&#0160;<em>Fast</em>, released from Harper Collins in May 2017, received the Bobbitt Award frm The Libary of Congress.</p> <p>I love this <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-poet-and-the-poem/id1375379498?mt=2">interview</a>&#0160;with Jorie Graham. I think it’s oddly seasonal,&#0160;&#0160;a perfect podcast to listen to now in the darkest time of the year, in the season of myth and magic. I love how Jorie Graham, like <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/12/an-interview-with-phillip-brady-by-nin-andrews.html">Philip Brady</a><em>,&#0160;</em>thinks in terms of our cultural beliefs.&#0160;</p> <p>If you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, at least listen to the opening when Jorie Graham describes how she imagines, when writing a poem, that she is trying to get the attention of an unwilling listener, or “a person such as a God who has heard every prayer already, every request, every outraged voice and is tired of humanity, and has turned his back or her back.&quot; She explains that “there is such a moment in the Bible that used to terrify me when I was younger, when Moses hides in a cleft of a rock and watches God’s back go by. And I used to think, God’s back? He turns his back on us?”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3ca577d200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Th-2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3ca577d200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3ca577d200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Th-2" /></a>Jorie Graham is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including the Forward Prize-winning and T.S. Eliot Prize-nominated&#0160;<em>Place</em>&#0160;(Ecco, 2012),&#0160;<em>From the New World: Poems 1976-2014</em>(2015),&#0160;<em>Sea Change</em>&#0160;(2008),&#0160;<em>Overlord</em>&#0160;(<wbr />HarperCollins, 2005);<em>&#0160;Never</em>&#0160;(HarperCollins, 2002);&#0160;<em>Swarm</em>(2000);<em>&#0160;The Errancy</em>&#0160;(1997);&#0160;<em>The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994</em>, which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry;&#0160;<em>Materialism (</em>1993);&#0160;<em>Region of Unlikeness</em>&#0160;(1991);<em>&#0160;The End of Beauty</em>&#0160;(1987);&#0160;<em>Erosion</em>&#0160;(1983); and&#0160;<em>Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts</em>&#0160;(1980). She has also edited two anthologies,&#0160;<em>Earth Took of Earth: 100 Great Poems of the English Language</em>&#0160;(1996) and<em>&#0160;The Best American Poetry 1990</em>. Her newest collection of poetry,&#0160;<em>Fast</em>, released from Harper Collins in May 2017, received the Bobbitt Award frm The Libary of Congress.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad3a8ca06200d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-12-21T02:15:56Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a8ca04200dAn Interview with Philip Brady (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-12-21T02:15:55Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>As a continuation in my series of blog posts on the nature of truth, specifically autobiographical truth in poetry, I thought I’d interview Philip Brady whose most recent collection of poetry, <em>to Banquet with the Ethiopians</em>, as well his new book of essays, <em>Phantom Signs</em>, deal directly and indirectly with the questions I have been pondering. &#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> As I mentioned in my recent interviews with <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/11/an-interview-with-january-gill-oneil-by-nin-andrews.html">January Gill O’Neil</a>, <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/12/an-interview-with-nicole-santalucia-by-nin-andrews.html">Nicole Santalucia</a>, and <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/12/an-interview-with-dante-di-stefano-by-nin-andrews.html">Dante Di Stefano</a>, I had a poetry professor once who hated what he called “dishonesty in poetry.” He hated it when poets used the first person, and then described illnesses they never had or divorces or . . . &#0160;who knows, maybe their own funerals. I am wondering what you think?&#0160;</p> <p>In your poetry as well as in your essays, the personal and the mythic are profoundly linked. Do you think of the <em>I&#0160;</em>in poetry as a sort of myth? The personal as a construction?</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c86504200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="PS cover front" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c86504200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c86504200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="PS cover front" /></a>PB:</strong> Nin, I am completely honest on the page. Naked. Virtually transparent. It is true that I suffer occasional lapses in orthography. Queens, for instance, is spelled, in my father’s hand, “Galway.” And Father himself is transcribed as “Telemachus.” While Mother is indubitably a goddess, she did not prove, regrettably, immortal. And my wife, in spite of being spelled “selkie,” is not in actuality trans-species. These variorums may be addressed in the next edition.</p> <p>I share your poetry prof’s aversion to doctoring. Untruths inserted in order to enhance status, embellish memory, hide sin, wring sympathy, or gain financial advantage must be censured. If, for instance, a certain University College Cork player signing “Rick Barry” autographs did not actually dunk a basketball against the Cork Blue Demons in Gurranabraher in 1976, any claim to the contrary is bollix. Likewise, if Homer didn’t write the Iliad and Odyssey, he should stop collecting royalties. &#0160;</p> <p><strong><em>&#0160;</em>NA:</strong> &#0160;In your essay, “The Book I Almost Wrote,” you describe your efforts to write a memoir, and how, after recovering from heart surgery, your concept of the memoir completely changed. You decided to write the memoir in verse instead. Somehow that made all the difference? Why?</p> <p><strong>PB:</strong> Partly it was perspective. Coming back from a near-death experience, I felt far away from the tribulations of a seventh grader in summer camp, where the prose memoir-in-progress was set. As Walter Ong has said, “One of the most startling paradoxes inherent in writing is its close association with death.” So there was the desire to lift things off the page. &#0160;Having just emerged from the place of the Muse, I wanted to compose and be composed by a living body, which is verse.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> How does verse change the dynamic?</p> <p><strong>PB:</strong> It changes speed, and allows for radical distortion of scale. Since they are margined, sentences must create believable scale and maintain pace.&#0160; Speed can of course vary, but not in the dramatic way that it can change in lines.&#0160;Lines can stretch each moment to an operatic recitative. Or they can move so quickly you skip or transpose whole lines. (I squint at any reading that doesn’t dwell on one line and skip another). Homer can take ten lines for a greeting, and flash through ten years of war in fifty days. So lines aspire to render the moment, repeated, varied, flawed with each enactment. Even in print, they retain an aura of private darkness—what I call in one phantom sign a “hex.” Sentences are webbed in the tissue of syntax. But lines are only loosely page-bound; each line is connected to the whole by rhythmic echo, but not necessarily by sense, punctuation, or chronology.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> You write in that same essay that you “began to see that there was no home, no element anyone could own or even belong to, except for the moment reaching for a single line.” That sounds very Zen. Could you elaborate?</p> <p><strong>PB:</strong> It’s the condition of utterance that I’m reaching for—the breathing and vanishing moment. I’ve heard that scientists say that that the present is ten-to -fifteen seconds. Maybe that’s why lines tend to be four to six feet. Each line is its own present. Bernard Knoxsays wrote that each of Homer’s dactylic hexameter lines displays the arrangement of the whole poem. Each begins with conflict and possibility, and proceeds through a variety of sounds to fill the metrical requirements. But each line ends with the same strict pairing of dactyl and spondee. The poem is inside each line—from possibility to finality. By the end of the Iliad, the force of the story has been welcomed and displayed sixteen thousand times. Of course lines too are time-bound. They are, in a sense, signatures rather than enactments of this ever-present. They are phantom signs. As a long-time practitioner of the prose poem, Nin, I wonder if you would agree that prose poems aspire to utterance without even the written score of lineation. They yearn to be neither sentences nor lines. They yearn toward the moment reaching for a single line—just beyond the human. For me, this yearning is at the heart of poetry. Poetry is the only art form which cannot be fully apprehended in one species—neither sight nor sound. Perhaps the last three thousand years of written verse is an elegy for a time when lines were conceived and spoken in one breath.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160;I love what you are saying here. I could never put it in words as you do.</p> <p>I also love how in your essay, “Are Lives Matter?” you describe the literary desire to escape the confines of one’s identity—even to be no one, meaning to be no one in the way Odysseus tried to be no one. In the way Dickinson wanted to be no one.&#0160;</p> <p>And yet those people who become “someone” are somehow owned by history? So their stories are not their own? Again “truth” is not literal truth?</p> <p><strong>PB:</strong><em>&#0160;</em>The greatest transformation of identity seems to me in folding three dimensional beings into two dimensions of the page. And as time passes, what we know about those who have made that transition grows less.In all cases, &#0160;identity is unsustainable. The further back we go, the more it’s corrupted—from history to rumor and finally to myth. We know Einstein’s hairdo and Mickey Mantle’s bourbon. But Daniel Boone? Sappho? Zarathustra?</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160;In your essay, “Lines and Sentences,” you write: “Memoirists are tattooed with sex; they reek of hormones. When people talk about the difference between memoir and fiction, that’s what they mean. It doesn’t have much to do with imagination: memoirists make up as much stuff as novelists do. The difference is that memoirists stand bowel-deep in the stench of their own creations.”</p> <p>Could you say a little more about this?</p> <p><strong>PB:&#0160;</strong>Well, for instance, in your next book, which I’m delighted to say is forthcoming from Etruscan, you conduct a dialogue involving “Nin” and “Orgasm.” Both speak; both are heard. The author is both and neither. There is a fiction at the heart of non-fiction. And vice-versa. There’s something of the memoir, perhaps, even in Homer. Samuel Butler says that considering Homer’s Trojan sympathies, he must have been a Trojan himself—at least on his mother’s side. So, memoirists and novelists are both tattooed with selfhood. What’s different is the position from which they speak: whether author or narrator.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160;Again, I love what you are saying here, as I love your latest book of essays.</p> <p>There are so many great poems and essays in&#0160;<em>Phantom Signs</em>.</p> <p>One of my favorite lines in the book is: “The first poet to come to nought was Homer.” As a publisher and a poet, would you like to say a few words about that?</p> <p><strong>PB<em>: </em></strong>Homer, I think, is the perfect example of our yearning to connect myth and time. We don’t know who Homer was, when or where he lived, or if he even existed. Nine cities in Greece claim his birth. Some brilliant and crazed scholars argue he spoke Basque, or that Troy was really in Cambridgeshire. &#0160;If Homer came to “nought,” it was by way of the process of emerging from myth into time—becoming a chirographic poet. Clearly, that happened—the Iliad and the Odyssey were written down, somewhere by some process. But was it by one person, as “Unitarian” scholars argue? Or by many, as “Analysts” say. Homer walks between two worlds: the world of many, and of one. As a publisher, of course, I am always a “Unitarian.” I promote our authors as individuals—we pitch their bios and credits. Yet, there is something of the “Analyst” too in this enterprise. Writers disappear into the text, which remains fixed even as their authors change. Publishers enable and monitor this transformation. As I say in “Edited,” “Writers don’t make books. They make stories, poems, plays, and memoirs. We make books.”</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160; Again, I love that. I’d like to close this interview with a poem of your choice and/or a brief excerpt from the book.</p> <p><strong>PS:&#0160;</strong>Here’s a bit from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu-HkDkEz30">Youtube</a>.</p> <p>And here’s one of “Nine Phantom Signs.”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Hex</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;There is a word that I am loathe to say. It sends a small shiver up my spine. Not the usual—fuck, cunt, shit, prick, ass. Nor the sloppy ones like darling, pumpkin, sweetie pie, lambkins. Hearing “Yaddo” always made a friend wrinkle her nose, but I lack allergies to odd-sounding words like firkin or Iroquois. I pronounce with equanimity terms that portend evil, like triglycerides. I am not dismissive of tongue twisters or ululation or jaw harping. I jabber to my cat. I sing alone.</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; It’s just this one word. It does not relate to sex, exactly, though one of its definitions is a body part. I would not say it out loud to myself, or to others if I could safely circumlocute. I would not have it uttered within earshot. The French version doesn’t squick me, which is ironic since the English is an obscenity in French. It is not a fetish; it does not fester behind a veil of incense and fishhooks. Though I can write the word, to write it while admitting that I would not say it—this I cannot.</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; I hex this word. I do not curse or swear. I hex it. If I spoke my hexed word you would not cringe. It is not shameful. But to say that I cannot say it would color my humanity; it would divide us, reader, in this particular. Hex is the lust of virgin silence, the tensing of the unfired synapse, the spell between bars of the equal sign. Hex causes and precedes. Sans hex, words perfectly denote. They mean the same to everyone. They lack gaiety.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; Every utterance is spun, like a charmed quark, by its hex. If all my hexes were perfectly aligned with Yeats’s, I would have composed “Lapis Lazuli.” Maybe I did. Loopy hexes spat out a book-length tale in blank verse. It zigzagged between myth and time. It opened with a list of everything that happens and does not. On the cover, it says To Banquet with the Ethiopians: A Memoir of Life Before the Alphabet. The name beneath is the same as the name beneath these words. Usually, it’s bad form to talk about one’s own book, but it’s OK here because it did not sell and if my name is on the dust jacket, it is only because none other has stepped forward.</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; The 265<sup>th</sup>item on the list of everything and not reads simply, “Thersites.” So in my phantom sign, that is my name. Telemachus is my father. Homer is a novice scrivener. Fearless is a perfect gay child who lived inside my body and Odysseus and Achilles and Agamemnon are counselors at a summer camp for boys.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The heroes of Thersites’ beach camp<br />Were Agamemnon, Achilles, and Odysseus.&#0160;<br />And so were the heroes of my beach camp. <br />I named them from the paperback I’d nicked <br />From a bin outside the Main Street 5&amp;10. <br />“A Great Adventure Story,” it was billed. <br />“The Greatest War Novel Ever Penned.” <br />Perched on a spavined bunk I clutched the book<br />And when Achilles or Odysseus <br />Or royal Agamemnon strode by, <br />I buried my nose till pages came unglued.&#0160; <br />&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; Before my book dissolved to my phantom sign it was composed of sentences. Stong and regular, they pulsed across the page, right justified, chapter upon paragraph. Then one autumn afternoon deep in midlife, there was a numbness in the syntax, a dependent clause cracked and then, an explosion.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I died, I think. It could be<br />A child’s fingers trace the livid script—<br />A cave figure or totem. It could be<br />My stitched chest is a chirograph<br />Metastasizing into memoir. <br />Thus my body, transcribed, rocks <br />Backward, washed clean of birth,<br />Forward into days charted by lines,<br />Backward like a wave or a half rhyme <br />And forward into the summer of 265 <br />When I first bent solemn to the page.<br />&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; The sentences were no longer mine. They were no longer sentences. They were pent up. But they were still colored by my hex. Otherwise they might be “Lapis Lazuli.”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c864c6200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Brady Passages" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c864c6200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c864c6200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Brady Passages" /></a>Philip Brady’s most recent release is a book-length poem, <em>To Banquet with the Ethiopians: A Memoir of Life Before the Alphabet</em>. He is the author of a previous collection of essays, <em>By Heart: Reflections of a Rust Belt Bard, (ForeWord</em> Gold Medal, 2008) as well as three books of poems and a memoir. His work has been awarded the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, the Ohioana Poetry Prize, the Ohio Governor’s Award, and six Ohio Arts Council Artist Grants. Brady has taught at the National University of Zaire, University College Cork, and Semester at Sea. Currently, he is a Distinguished Professor at Youngstown State University and Executive&#0160; Director of Etruscan Press. He also serves on the MFA faculty at Wilkes University. &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>As a continuation in my series of blog posts on the nature of truth, specifically autobiographical truth in poetry, I thought I’d interview Philip Brady whose most recent collection of poetry, <em>to Banquet with the Ethiopians</em>, as well his new book of essays, <em>Phantom Signs</em>, deal directly and indirectly with the questions I have been pondering. &#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> As I mentioned in my recent interviews with <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/11/an-interview-with-january-gill-oneil-by-nin-andrews.html">January Gill O’Neil</a>, <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/12/an-interview-with-nicole-santalucia-by-nin-andrews.html">Nicole Santalucia</a>, and <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/12/an-interview-with-dante-di-stefano-by-nin-andrews.html">Dante Di Stefano</a>, I had a poetry professor once who hated what he called “dishonesty in poetry.” He hated it when poets used the first person, and then described illnesses they never had or divorces or . . . &#0160;who knows, maybe their own funerals. I am wondering what you think?&#0160;</p> <p>In your poetry as well as in your essays, the personal and the mythic are profoundly linked. Do you think of the <em>I&#0160;</em>in poetry as a sort of myth? The personal as a construction?</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c86504200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="PS cover front" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c86504200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c86504200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="PS cover front" /></a>PB:</strong> Nin, I am completely honest on the page. Naked. Virtually transparent. It is true that I suffer occasional lapses in orthography. Queens, for instance, is spelled, in my father’s hand, “Galway.” And Father himself is transcribed as “Telemachus.” While Mother is indubitably a goddess, she did not prove, regrettably, immortal. And my wife, in spite of being spelled “selkie,” is not in actuality trans-species. These variorums may be addressed in the next edition.</p> <p>I share your poetry prof’s aversion to doctoring. Untruths inserted in order to enhance status, embellish memory, hide sin, wring sympathy, or gain financial advantage must be censured. If, for instance, a certain University College Cork player signing “Rick Barry” autographs did not actually dunk a basketball against the Cork Blue Demons in Gurranabraher in 1976, any claim to the contrary is bollix. Likewise, if Homer didn’t write the Iliad and Odyssey, he should stop collecting royalties. &#0160;</p> <p><strong><em>&#0160;</em>NA:</strong> &#0160;In your essay, “The Book I Almost Wrote,” you describe your efforts to write a memoir, and how, after recovering from heart surgery, your concept of the memoir completely changed. You decided to write the memoir in verse instead. Somehow that made all the difference? Why?</p> <p><strong>PB:</strong> Partly it was perspective. Coming back from a near-death experience, I felt far away from the tribulations of a seventh grader in summer camp, where the prose memoir-in-progress was set. As Walter Ong has said, “One of the most startling paradoxes inherent in writing is its close association with death.” So there was the desire to lift things off the page. &#0160;Having just emerged from the place of the Muse, I wanted to compose and be composed by a living body, which is verse.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> How does verse change the dynamic?</p> <p><strong>PB:</strong> It changes speed, and allows for radical distortion of scale. Since they are margined, sentences must create believable scale and maintain pace.&#0160; Speed can of course vary, but not in the dramatic way that it can change in lines.&#0160;Lines can stretch each moment to an operatic recitative. Or they can move so quickly you skip or transpose whole lines. (I squint at any reading that doesn’t dwell on one line and skip another). Homer can take ten lines for a greeting, and flash through ten years of war in fifty days. So lines aspire to render the moment, repeated, varied, flawed with each enactment. Even in print, they retain an aura of private darkness—what I call in one phantom sign a “hex.” Sentences are webbed in the tissue of syntax. But lines are only loosely page-bound; each line is connected to the whole by rhythmic echo, but not necessarily by sense, punctuation, or chronology.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> You write in that same essay that you “began to see that there was no home, no element anyone could own or even belong to, except for the moment reaching for a single line.” That sounds very Zen. Could you elaborate?</p> <p><strong>PB:</strong> It’s the condition of utterance that I’m reaching for—the breathing and vanishing moment. I’ve heard that scientists say that that the present is ten-to -fifteen seconds. Maybe that’s why lines tend to be four to six feet. Each line is its own present. Bernard Knoxsays wrote that each of Homer’s dactylic hexameter lines displays the arrangement of the whole poem. Each begins with conflict and possibility, and proceeds through a variety of sounds to fill the metrical requirements. But each line ends with the same strict pairing of dactyl and spondee. The poem is inside each line—from possibility to finality. By the end of the Iliad, the force of the story has been welcomed and displayed sixteen thousand times. Of course lines too are time-bound. They are, in a sense, signatures rather than enactments of this ever-present. They are phantom signs. As a long-time practitioner of the prose poem, Nin, I wonder if you would agree that prose poems aspire to utterance without even the written score of lineation. They yearn to be neither sentences nor lines. They yearn toward the moment reaching for a single line—just beyond the human. For me, this yearning is at the heart of poetry. Poetry is the only art form which cannot be fully apprehended in one species—neither sight nor sound. Perhaps the last three thousand years of written verse is an elegy for a time when lines were conceived and spoken in one breath.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160;I love what you are saying here. I could never put it in words as you do.</p> <p>I also love how in your essay, “Are Lives Matter?” you describe the literary desire to escape the confines of one’s identity—even to be no one, meaning to be no one in the way Odysseus tried to be no one. In the way Dickinson wanted to be no one.&#0160;</p> <p>And yet those people who become “someone” are somehow owned by history? So their stories are not their own? Again “truth” is not literal truth?</p> <p><strong>PB:</strong><em>&#0160;</em>The greatest transformation of identity seems to me in folding three dimensional beings into two dimensions of the page. And as time passes, what we know about those who have made that transition grows less.In all cases, &#0160;identity is unsustainable. The further back we go, the more it’s corrupted—from history to rumor and finally to myth. We know Einstein’s hairdo and Mickey Mantle’s bourbon. But Daniel Boone? Sappho? Zarathustra?</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160;In your essay, “Lines and Sentences,” you write: “Memoirists are tattooed with sex; they reek of hormones. When people talk about the difference between memoir and fiction, that’s what they mean. It doesn’t have much to do with imagination: memoirists make up as much stuff as novelists do. The difference is that memoirists stand bowel-deep in the stench of their own creations.”</p> <p>Could you say a little more about this?</p> <p><strong>PB:&#0160;</strong>Well, for instance, in your next book, which I’m delighted to say is forthcoming from Etruscan, you conduct a dialogue involving “Nin” and “Orgasm.” Both speak; both are heard. The author is both and neither. There is a fiction at the heart of non-fiction. And vice-versa. There’s something of the memoir, perhaps, even in Homer. Samuel Butler says that considering Homer’s Trojan sympathies, he must have been a Trojan himself—at least on his mother’s side. So, memoirists and novelists are both tattooed with selfhood. What’s different is the position from which they speak: whether author or narrator.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160;Again, I love what you are saying here, as I love your latest book of essays.</p> <p>There are so many great poems and essays in&#0160;<em>Phantom Signs</em>.</p> <p>One of my favorite lines in the book is: “The first poet to come to nought was Homer.” As a publisher and a poet, would you like to say a few words about that?</p> <p><strong>PB<em>: </em></strong>Homer, I think, is the perfect example of our yearning to connect myth and time. We don’t know who Homer was, when or where he lived, or if he even existed. Nine cities in Greece claim his birth. Some brilliant and crazed scholars argue he spoke Basque, or that Troy was really in Cambridgeshire. &#0160;If Homer came to “nought,” it was by way of the process of emerging from myth into time—becoming a chirographic poet. Clearly, that happened—the Iliad and the Odyssey were written down, somewhere by some process. But was it by one person, as “Unitarian” scholars argue? Or by many, as “Analysts” say. Homer walks between two worlds: the world of many, and of one. As a publisher, of course, I am always a “Unitarian.” I promote our authors as individuals—we pitch their bios and credits. Yet, there is something of the “Analyst” too in this enterprise. Writers disappear into the text, which remains fixed even as their authors change. Publishers enable and monitor this transformation. As I say in “Edited,” “Writers don’t make books. They make stories, poems, plays, and memoirs. We make books.”</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160; Again, I love that. I’d like to close this interview with a poem of your choice and/or a brief excerpt from the book.</p> <p><strong>PS:&#0160;</strong>Here’s a bit from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu-HkDkEz30">Youtube</a>.</p> <p>And here’s one of “Nine Phantom Signs.”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Hex</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;There is a word that I am loathe to say. It sends a small shiver up my spine. Not the usual—fuck, cunt, shit, prick, ass. Nor the sloppy ones like darling, pumpkin, sweetie pie, lambkins. Hearing “Yaddo” always made a friend wrinkle her nose, but I lack allergies to odd-sounding words like firkin or Iroquois. I pronounce with equanimity terms that portend evil, like triglycerides. I am not dismissive of tongue twisters or ululation or jaw harping. I jabber to my cat. I sing alone.</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; It’s just this one word. It does not relate to sex, exactly, though one of its definitions is a body part. I would not say it out loud to myself, or to others if I could safely circumlocute. I would not have it uttered within earshot. The French version doesn’t squick me, which is ironic since the English is an obscenity in French. It is not a fetish; it does not fester behind a veil of incense and fishhooks. Though I can write the word, to write it while admitting that I would not say it—this I cannot.</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; I hex this word. I do not curse or swear. I hex it. If I spoke my hexed word you would not cringe. It is not shameful. But to say that I cannot say it would color my humanity; it would divide us, reader, in this particular. Hex is the lust of virgin silence, the tensing of the unfired synapse, the spell between bars of the equal sign. Hex causes and precedes. Sans hex, words perfectly denote. They mean the same to everyone. They lack gaiety.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; Every utterance is spun, like a charmed quark, by its hex. If all my hexes were perfectly aligned with Yeats’s, I would have composed “Lapis Lazuli.” Maybe I did. Loopy hexes spat out a book-length tale in blank verse. It zigzagged between myth and time. It opened with a list of everything that happens and does not. On the cover, it says To Banquet with the Ethiopians: A Memoir of Life Before the Alphabet. The name beneath is the same as the name beneath these words. Usually, it’s bad form to talk about one’s own book, but it’s OK here because it did not sell and if my name is on the dust jacket, it is only because none other has stepped forward.</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; The 265<sup>th</sup>item on the list of everything and not reads simply, “Thersites.” So in my phantom sign, that is my name. Telemachus is my father. Homer is a novice scrivener. Fearless is a perfect gay child who lived inside my body and Odysseus and Achilles and Agamemnon are counselors at a summer camp for boys.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The heroes of Thersites’ beach camp<br />Were Agamemnon, Achilles, and Odysseus.&#0160;<br />And so were the heroes of my beach camp. <br />I named them from the paperback I’d nicked <br />From a bin outside the Main Street 5&amp;10. <br />“A Great Adventure Story,” it was billed. <br />“The Greatest War Novel Ever Penned.” <br />Perched on a spavined bunk I clutched the book<br />And when Achilles or Odysseus <br />Or royal Agamemnon strode by, <br />I buried my nose till pages came unglued.&#0160; <br />&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; Before my book dissolved to my phantom sign it was composed of sentences. Stong and regular, they pulsed across the page, right justified, chapter upon paragraph. Then one autumn afternoon deep in midlife, there was a numbness in the syntax, a dependent clause cracked and then, an explosion.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I died, I think. It could be<br />A child’s fingers trace the livid script—<br />A cave figure or totem. It could be<br />My stitched chest is a chirograph<br />Metastasizing into memoir. <br />Thus my body, transcribed, rocks <br />Backward, washed clean of birth,<br />Forward into days charted by lines,<br />Backward like a wave or a half rhyme <br />And forward into the summer of 265 <br />When I first bent solemn to the page.<br />&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; The sentences were no longer mine. They were no longer sentences. They were pent up. But they were still colored by my hex. Otherwise they might be “Lapis Lazuli.”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c864c6200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Brady Passages" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c864c6200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c864c6200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Brady Passages" /></a>Philip Brady’s most recent release is a book-length poem, <em>To Banquet with the Ethiopians: A Memoir of Life Before the Alphabet</em>. He is the author of a previous collection of essays, <em>By Heart: Reflections of a Rust Belt Bard, (ForeWord</em> Gold Medal, 2008) as well as three books of poems and a memoir. His work has been awarded the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, the Ohioana Poetry Prize, the Ohio Governor’s Award, and six Ohio Arts Council Artist Grants. Brady has taught at the National University of Zaire, University College Cork, and Semester at Sea. Currently, he is a Distinguished Professor at Youngstown State University and Executive&#0160; Director of Etruscan Press. He also serves on the MFA faculty at Wilkes University. &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad3a69ac2200d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-12-11T16:55:40Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a69ac0200dAn Interview with Dante Di Stefano (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-12-11T16:55:39Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>&#0160;</p> <p>As you might have guessed from my recent blog posts, I have been thinking a lot about the nature of truth, specifically autobiographical truth, in poetry. After all, we seem to be in era where everyone is questioning the nature of truth in every kind of writing.&#0160; As I mentioned in my interview with January Gill O’Neil, I had a poetry professor once who hated what he called “dishonesty in poetry.” He hated it when poets used the first person, and then described illnesses they never had or divorces they never went through or . . . who knows, maybe their own funerals. So I wanted to ask several poets how they navigate this question. A fan of the works of Dante Di Stefano, I thought I’d ask him a few questions. (Let me add that I love asking Dante anything, even the most inane questions because he always has such brilliant answers. I&#39;m thinking of starting a column with the title,&#0160;<em>Just&#0160;Ask Dante</em>.)</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I love your poem in this year’s <em>Best American Poetry</em>, and I think it speaks to the essence of what made you want to be a poet. Or maybe it is simply stating that you already were, at seventeen, in essence, a poet. &#0160;(Of course, by saying that I am admitting that I am reading the poem as truth.) But reading it, I would not imagine that you set out to be an autobiographical or confessional poet?&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen </strong></p> <p><br />In those days, my dreams always changed titles<br />before they were finished, and I wanted<br />only to love in that insane, tortured way<br />of poor dear Dmitri Karamazov.<br />Suddenly, I was speaking the language<br />of lapdog and samovar. This is<br />the ballroom, the barracks, the firing squad.<br />This is the old monk with the beard of bees.<br />This is the orange lullaby the moon<br />of the moon will sing you when it’s grieving.<br />This is the province you escape by train,<br />fleeing heavy snow and eternal elk.<br />This is the part where I take your hand in<br />my hand and I tell you we are burning.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c628be200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="ANGELS CHAGALL NEW 2 " class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c628be200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c628be200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="ANGELS CHAGALL NEW 2 " /></a></strong>And let me add, before you answer the question, that this poem as well as the others in this interview is from your forthcoming book, <em>Ill Angels</em>, that will be published by Etruscan Press next summer. I am so looking forward to owning that book!&#0160;</p> <p><strong>DDS: </strong>Thanks for your kind words, Nin. No, I didn’t set out to be a poet at all, of any kind. I’ve always loved reading and writing, but in high school I read mostly novels, and I kept a daily journal that mostly consisted of reactions to the books I was reading, quotes from those books, lists of new words I’d discovered, and philosophical statements (that I’m sure would make me cringe if I read them today). “Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen” begins with an autobiographical detail; it’s true that I read Dostoyevsky’s four big novels when I was seventeen. The poem attempts to recreate the frenetically pitched set of emotions that one only experiences either in the pages of a Russian novel or in the throes of adolescence. None of the images and phrases are drawn directly from Dostoyevsky. Rather, I try to evoke what Milan Kundera called “the magical charm of atmospheres”: recalling what it felt like to lie alone in my twin bed at night pondering the fate of Dmitri Karamazov, dreaming of a girl I liked in my homeroom. “Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen” is an attempt to capture those lost atmospheres from a novelistic or cinematic vantage point.</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I admire your poems about your father’s illness and death. One of these poems is called, “A Defense of Confessional Poetry.” Are you a defender of confessional poetry? Do you consider these poems to be confessional?</p> <p><strong>DDS: </strong>The poems about the illness and death of my father are deeply autobiographical. Most, if not all, of the details in these poems are true to the events as I recall them. Whenever I write about someone I know I tend not to embellish. Of course, remembering is an inherently slippery proposition, but I try to remain moored to the truth of my recollection. Sometimes, I feel like this fidelity to “truth” is a failure of imagination on my part. However, it would feel like a betrayal if I invented additional details about the day my father died, if I changed a second of my daughter’s birth, if I altered my wife’s personality, simply in service to a poem. In this sense, I can understand the objections of your college poetry professor.</p> <p>The title “A Defense of Confessional Poetry” was a bit tongue in cheek, but in the poem, I was also trying to emphasize the transformational and restorative aspects of reconciling, or attempting to reconcile, the death of my father with my complicated feelings toward him.</p> <p>I’m not a defender of confessional poetry (or of any poetry for that matter). I deeply admire the first-generation Confessional poets (none of whom, except for Sexton, approved of the label “Confessional”). These poets (Berryman, Snodgrass, Lowell, Plath, Sexton) provided a radical rejoinder to the orthodoxies of high Modernism and New Criticism, while opening thematic space for subsequent generations of poets to write about virtually anything. It should be noted that Confessional poetry comes to prominence along with the Beat Generation and the New York School at the height of the Cold War. These schools of poetry overlap with, and bleed into, the civil rights movement, the counter-culture, the feminist movement, and the gay rights movement, all of which signaled fundamental changes in American society. In these movements, speaking personally became a crucial form of intervention in the public sphere and an overt political act.&#0160;The Black Arts Movement is also a part of this helix.</p> <p>From the time of its coinage to present day, the term “confessional,” as applied to poetry, has proven problematic. M.L. Rosenthal’s initial formulation of the confessional mode of writing (in his review of Robert Lowell’s <em>Life Studies</em>) posits confessional poetry as a kind of “soul’s therapy.” (“Soul’s therapy” sounds downright ridiculous in 2018.) Confessional poetry since Rosenthal’s appraisal of&#0160;<em>Life Studies</em>, although variously defined, remains contingent upon the linkages between personal revelation, private guilt, and public authenticity.&#0160;</p> <p>Today, in the world of reality television, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, the boundaries of the personal and the private have blurred. The forms of confession practiced across the spectrum of contemporary media are staged and superficial, contingent upon spectacle, less concerned with discovering truths than they are with generating celebrity. Confessions (and scandals) may abound in social media today, but little retains the power to shock or to foment meaningful political change. It’s undoubted that the autobiographical lyric and the shadow of the confessional mode continue to dominate the mainstream of contemporary American poetry. However, there’s so much reality-clutter in our culture, so many ways that poets (and non-poets alike) shape and pedal virtual selves, that the lyrical gesture toward autobiography and confession loses its dynamism against the backdrop of so many proliferating identities and revelations. It seems like identity and authenticity are more contested from more perspectives than ever before.</p> <p>I’m somewhat suspicious of the overreliance on autobiographical detail in my own poetry because it opens the door to the corrosiveness of narcissism, sentimentality, and nostalgia.&#0160; I’m constantly at war with these things, and with my own inexhaustible naivete. At the same time, I don’t generally confess things that are shameful in my poetry, although I recognize the power in that gesture. I don’t want to put all my business in the street. Many of my poems are persona poems, or poems about music and language. I strive to be protean, to speak in tongues; I’d like to get to the point where I could have access to the imagination in the manner of William Blake, Christopher Smart, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson (Not to be as great as any one of them, but to write one or two poems that approaches “The Proverbs of Hell” or “Juilate Agno” or “The Windhover” or “I taste a liquor never brewed”).</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>In your poem, “Bronx Pyramid,” you open, “Sometimes you might be tempted to invent/a memory&#0160; . . .” and later you write, “I have come to know that I am not I/and you are not you in the music; . . .”</p> <p>I love this poem, and I wanted to know if you could elaborate on the sentiments expressed in it.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>The Bronx Pyramid</strong><br /><em>after Carlos Henriquez</em></p> <p><br />Sometimes you might be tempted to invent<br />a memory from a Brook Avenue,<br />a curandera’s chanting resurrects,<br />a stillborn third son, brujo’s serpent tongue,<br />a trumpet blown over the arco of<br />ordinary seconds. Now, I hear time<br />cajole a rhythm from the embalmed worm<br />of reverie hidden in my own heart.<br />I have come to know that I am not I<br />and you are never you in the music;<br />here, where musician and audience meet,<br />we remain thirsty for the what that is<br />and is and hangs there like a mother’s name,<br />carving infinite care from the silence.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>DDS: </strong>“The Bronx Pyramid” is an attempt to write from inside the music of Jazz bassist Carlos Henriquez. Henriquez is one of my favorite contemporary musicians and this poem tries to articulate what it feels like to dwell in the notes of his music. It occurs to me that we never question how autobiographical a Coltrane number is, and yet if you listen to <em>A Love Supreme&#0160;</em>you come away with the sense that this music has laid bare a life before you. In great music, there is an intimacy and a vulnerability we are invited to share in as listeners. This holds true for other kinds of music too; it doesn’t matter if Bob Dylan lived on desolation row or if Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. A poem can be encoded with truth in the same way as a pop song or as a jazz number. What I think I come to understand in “The Bronx Pyramid” is that the music of Jazz and poetry (and Rock and Soul and on and on) begins with the dissolution of the self. One of the greatest joys I know is to be in the midst of composing a poem, or saying a poem, free from the strictures of self-definition, charged with negative capability, awash in what Galway Kinnell called “saying in its own music what matters most.”</p> <p><strong>NA: </strong>Also, in your poem, “Stump Speech,” you begin:</p> <p>You undress in poetry, but in prose<br />you redress. You grow old in prose, lose teeth,<br />forget the face of your brother, but call<br />to your dead and dying in poetry.</p> <p>For you, poetry is reaching for a different kind of truth than prose? &#0160;</p> <p><strong>DDS: </strong>I believe poetry has a different way of embodying truths than prose does. Quoting Milan Kundera again, “prose: the word signifies not only nonversified language; it also signifies the concrete, everyday, corporeal nature of life.” For me, prose embodies the incremental, the calendric, the historic, the national, the transnational, and the immediate; of course, poetry has something to do with those things too, but poetry thresholds itself between restraint and effusion. It has more to do with the mythic, the atemporal, the visionary, the legislation of unacknowledged worlds (to paraphrase Oppen); of course, prose can tread that ground as well, but I don’t think in quite the same way as poetry does. Also, the distinctions between poetry and prose have collapsed quite a bit, under, among other things, the weight of what Christian Wiman called “the train wreck of broken-prose confessionalism.” I’m not as pessimistic about broken-prose confessionalism as Wiman is, and I haven’t quite articulated all the differences I intuit between great poetry and great prose, but I sense there are clear distinctions. Part of why I write poetry is to clarify those distinctions, and to come closer to understanding what poetry is.</p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong><strong>NA: </strong>In your poem, “For My Creative Writing Students,” you have these lines:</p> <p>“The need to say what you can’t say unspools/ itself from your mouths and hymnals a hope/as blue and speckled as a robin’s egg.” Do you think of poetry as a way to say what can’t be said?&#0160;</p> <p><strong>DDS:&#0160;</strong>I believe there are truths conveyed in poetry that go beyond the limits of language, what Frost called “the sound of sense,” what Donald Hall called “the unsayable said.” I don’t think poems have so much to do with intention; poems are a kind of throbbing through words that accrues to music, what Stevens meant by “the dove in the belly.”</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I love that. Honestly, I would love to keep asking you questions just to read your responses. But I will stop for now. I thought maybe we could close with &quot;Dreaming of Hokusai at Sloan-Kettering.&quot;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Dreaming of Hokusai at Sloan-Kettering</strong><br /><strong>&#0160;</strong></p> <p>Because all the animals are kings and queens,<br />I wait for the rain to paint me; I long<br />to dream the butterfly dreaming me while<br />the blood lotuses into test tube,<br />pillow cherry blossoms the lolling head,<br />and all over the world the living still<br />go on living despite the needle’s truth,<br />stitching saline into this purple vein,<br />as a hawk is painted onto a bough<br />and the window beads itself up with rain.</p> <p><br />The great wave continues to crash against<br />the clear sky, peasants fly kites from the roofs<br />that appear higher than Mount Fuji’s snow,<br />the fisherman’s wife fucks an octopus<br />or two, and the paddies remain tended<br />even when the south wind blows your hat off.</p> <p><br />We, in our frail bodies, are woodcut, sketched<br />on silk, silkworms ourselves, ideograms<br />for dying, riders galloping a ridge<br />toward a mountain we will never reach.</p> <p><br />There is no way to paint the swan in you,<br />or the heron taking wing, the village,<br />its terrible stillness before the fire.</p> <p><br />For now, you have only the orderly<br />joking with the phlebotomist, asking<br />her to draw your blood in a bikini<br />next time; this is your temple, your tea house,<br />your watermill frozen in its churning,<br />a wheel of rivulets like braided hair,<br />or like the sutures in your throat and chest.</p> <p><br />And the hospital might trick you into<br />believing this pain might make you holy,<br />but you are already holy, the stooped<br />millworker with a turtle on a string,<br />the surface of a lake without ripples,<br />the portly monk laughing in his Saki,<br />the lumberjacks sawing planks in heaven,<br />the sound of traffic on 68th Street,<br />the sill cleaving flight, a regent of air.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3807b17200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="20170906_dante01_jwc" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3807b17200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3807b17200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="20170906_dante01_jwc" /></a></strong>Dante Di Stefano is the author of two poetry collections: <em>Love Is a Stone Endlessly in Flight </em>(Brighthorse Books, 2016) and<em> Ill Angels </em>(Etruscan Press, 2019). His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in <em>Prairie Schooner, The Sewanee Review, The Writer’s Chronicle,</em> and elsewhere. Along with María Isabel Àlvarez, he is the co-editor of the anthology, <em>Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America</em> (NYQ Books, 2018).&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>As you might have guessed from my recent blog posts, I have been thinking a lot about the nature of truth, specifically autobiographical truth, in poetry. After all, we seem to be in era where everyone is questioning the nature of truth in every kind of writing.&#0160; As I mentioned in my interview with January Gill O’Neil, I had a poetry professor once who hated what he called “dishonesty in poetry.” He hated it when poets used the first person, and then described illnesses they never had or divorces they never went through or . . . who knows, maybe their own funerals. So I wanted to ask several poets how they navigate this question. A fan of the works of Dante Di Stefano, I thought I’d ask him a few questions. (Let me add that I love asking Dante anything, even the most inane questions because he always has such brilliant answers. I&#39;m thinking of starting a column with the title,&#0160;<em>Just&#0160;Ask Dante</em>.)</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I love your poem in this year’s <em>Best American Poetry</em>, and I think it speaks to the essence of what made you want to be a poet. Or maybe it is simply stating that you already were, at seventeen, in essence, a poet. &#0160;(Of course, by saying that I am admitting that I am reading the poem as truth.) But reading it, I would not imagine that you set out to be an autobiographical or confessional poet?&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen </strong></p> <p><br />In those days, my dreams always changed titles<br />before they were finished, and I wanted<br />only to love in that insane, tortured way<br />of poor dear Dmitri Karamazov.<br />Suddenly, I was speaking the language<br />of lapdog and samovar. This is<br />the ballroom, the barracks, the firing squad.<br />This is the old monk with the beard of bees.<br />This is the orange lullaby the moon<br />of the moon will sing you when it’s grieving.<br />This is the province you escape by train,<br />fleeing heavy snow and eternal elk.<br />This is the part where I take your hand in<br />my hand and I tell you we are burning.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c628be200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="ANGELS CHAGALL NEW 2 " class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c628be200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c628be200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="ANGELS CHAGALL NEW 2 " /></a></strong>And let me add, before you answer the question, that this poem as well as the others in this interview is from your forthcoming book, <em>Ill Angels</em>, that will be published by Etruscan Press next summer. I am so looking forward to owning that book!&#0160;</p> <p><strong>DDS: </strong>Thanks for your kind words, Nin. No, I didn’t set out to be a poet at all, of any kind. I’ve always loved reading and writing, but in high school I read mostly novels, and I kept a daily journal that mostly consisted of reactions to the books I was reading, quotes from those books, lists of new words I’d discovered, and philosophical statements (that I’m sure would make me cringe if I read them today). “Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen” begins with an autobiographical detail; it’s true that I read Dostoyevsky’s four big novels when I was seventeen. The poem attempts to recreate the frenetically pitched set of emotions that one only experiences either in the pages of a Russian novel or in the throes of adolescence. None of the images and phrases are drawn directly from Dostoyevsky. Rather, I try to evoke what Milan Kundera called “the magical charm of atmospheres”: recalling what it felt like to lie alone in my twin bed at night pondering the fate of Dmitri Karamazov, dreaming of a girl I liked in my homeroom. “Reading Dostoyevsky at Seventeen” is an attempt to capture those lost atmospheres from a novelistic or cinematic vantage point.</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I admire your poems about your father’s illness and death. One of these poems is called, “A Defense of Confessional Poetry.” Are you a defender of confessional poetry? Do you consider these poems to be confessional?</p> <p><strong>DDS: </strong>The poems about the illness and death of my father are deeply autobiographical. Most, if not all, of the details in these poems are true to the events as I recall them. Whenever I write about someone I know I tend not to embellish. Of course, remembering is an inherently slippery proposition, but I try to remain moored to the truth of my recollection. Sometimes, I feel like this fidelity to “truth” is a failure of imagination on my part. However, it would feel like a betrayal if I invented additional details about the day my father died, if I changed a second of my daughter’s birth, if I altered my wife’s personality, simply in service to a poem. In this sense, I can understand the objections of your college poetry professor.</p> <p>The title “A Defense of Confessional Poetry” was a bit tongue in cheek, but in the poem, I was also trying to emphasize the transformational and restorative aspects of reconciling, or attempting to reconcile, the death of my father with my complicated feelings toward him.</p> <p>I’m not a defender of confessional poetry (or of any poetry for that matter). I deeply admire the first-generation Confessional poets (none of whom, except for Sexton, approved of the label “Confessional”). These poets (Berryman, Snodgrass, Lowell, Plath, Sexton) provided a radical rejoinder to the orthodoxies of high Modernism and New Criticism, while opening thematic space for subsequent generations of poets to write about virtually anything. It should be noted that Confessional poetry comes to prominence along with the Beat Generation and the New York School at the height of the Cold War. These schools of poetry overlap with, and bleed into, the civil rights movement, the counter-culture, the feminist movement, and the gay rights movement, all of which signaled fundamental changes in American society. In these movements, speaking personally became a crucial form of intervention in the public sphere and an overt political act.&#0160;The Black Arts Movement is also a part of this helix.</p> <p>From the time of its coinage to present day, the term “confessional,” as applied to poetry, has proven problematic. M.L. Rosenthal’s initial formulation of the confessional mode of writing (in his review of Robert Lowell’s <em>Life Studies</em>) posits confessional poetry as a kind of “soul’s therapy.” (“Soul’s therapy” sounds downright ridiculous in 2018.) Confessional poetry since Rosenthal’s appraisal of&#0160;<em>Life Studies</em>, although variously defined, remains contingent upon the linkages between personal revelation, private guilt, and public authenticity.&#0160;</p> <p>Today, in the world of reality television, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, the boundaries of the personal and the private have blurred. The forms of confession practiced across the spectrum of contemporary media are staged and superficial, contingent upon spectacle, less concerned with discovering truths than they are with generating celebrity. Confessions (and scandals) may abound in social media today, but little retains the power to shock or to foment meaningful political change. It’s undoubted that the autobiographical lyric and the shadow of the confessional mode continue to dominate the mainstream of contemporary American poetry. However, there’s so much reality-clutter in our culture, so many ways that poets (and non-poets alike) shape and pedal virtual selves, that the lyrical gesture toward autobiography and confession loses its dynamism against the backdrop of so many proliferating identities and revelations. It seems like identity and authenticity are more contested from more perspectives than ever before.</p> <p>I’m somewhat suspicious of the overreliance on autobiographical detail in my own poetry because it opens the door to the corrosiveness of narcissism, sentimentality, and nostalgia.&#0160; I’m constantly at war with these things, and with my own inexhaustible naivete. At the same time, I don’t generally confess things that are shameful in my poetry, although I recognize the power in that gesture. I don’t want to put all my business in the street. Many of my poems are persona poems, or poems about music and language. I strive to be protean, to speak in tongues; I’d like to get to the point where I could have access to the imagination in the manner of William Blake, Christopher Smart, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson (Not to be as great as any one of them, but to write one or two poems that approaches “The Proverbs of Hell” or “Juilate Agno” or “The Windhover” or “I taste a liquor never brewed”).</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>In your poem, “Bronx Pyramid,” you open, “Sometimes you might be tempted to invent/a memory&#0160; . . .” and later you write, “I have come to know that I am not I/and you are not you in the music; . . .”</p> <p>I love this poem, and I wanted to know if you could elaborate on the sentiments expressed in it.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>The Bronx Pyramid</strong><br /><em>after Carlos Henriquez</em></p> <p><br />Sometimes you might be tempted to invent<br />a memory from a Brook Avenue,<br />a curandera’s chanting resurrects,<br />a stillborn third son, brujo’s serpent tongue,<br />a trumpet blown over the arco of<br />ordinary seconds. Now, I hear time<br />cajole a rhythm from the embalmed worm<br />of reverie hidden in my own heart.<br />I have come to know that I am not I<br />and you are never you in the music;<br />here, where musician and audience meet,<br />we remain thirsty for the what that is<br />and is and hangs there like a mother’s name,<br />carving infinite care from the silence.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>DDS: </strong>“The Bronx Pyramid” is an attempt to write from inside the music of Jazz bassist Carlos Henriquez. Henriquez is one of my favorite contemporary musicians and this poem tries to articulate what it feels like to dwell in the notes of his music. It occurs to me that we never question how autobiographical a Coltrane number is, and yet if you listen to <em>A Love Supreme&#0160;</em>you come away with the sense that this music has laid bare a life before you. In great music, there is an intimacy and a vulnerability we are invited to share in as listeners. This holds true for other kinds of music too; it doesn’t matter if Bob Dylan lived on desolation row or if Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. A poem can be encoded with truth in the same way as a pop song or as a jazz number. What I think I come to understand in “The Bronx Pyramid” is that the music of Jazz and poetry (and Rock and Soul and on and on) begins with the dissolution of the self. One of the greatest joys I know is to be in the midst of composing a poem, or saying a poem, free from the strictures of self-definition, charged with negative capability, awash in what Galway Kinnell called “saying in its own music what matters most.”</p> <p><strong>NA: </strong>Also, in your poem, “Stump Speech,” you begin:</p> <p>You undress in poetry, but in prose<br />you redress. You grow old in prose, lose teeth,<br />forget the face of your brother, but call<br />to your dead and dying in poetry.</p> <p>For you, poetry is reaching for a different kind of truth than prose? &#0160;</p> <p><strong>DDS: </strong>I believe poetry has a different way of embodying truths than prose does. Quoting Milan Kundera again, “prose: the word signifies not only nonversified language; it also signifies the concrete, everyday, corporeal nature of life.” For me, prose embodies the incremental, the calendric, the historic, the national, the transnational, and the immediate; of course, poetry has something to do with those things too, but poetry thresholds itself between restraint and effusion. It has more to do with the mythic, the atemporal, the visionary, the legislation of unacknowledged worlds (to paraphrase Oppen); of course, prose can tread that ground as well, but I don’t think in quite the same way as poetry does. Also, the distinctions between poetry and prose have collapsed quite a bit, under, among other things, the weight of what Christian Wiman called “the train wreck of broken-prose confessionalism.” I’m not as pessimistic about broken-prose confessionalism as Wiman is, and I haven’t quite articulated all the differences I intuit between great poetry and great prose, but I sense there are clear distinctions. Part of why I write poetry is to clarify those distinctions, and to come closer to understanding what poetry is.</p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong><strong>NA: </strong>In your poem, “For My Creative Writing Students,” you have these lines:</p> <p>“The need to say what you can’t say unspools/ itself from your mouths and hymnals a hope/as blue and speckled as a robin’s egg.” Do you think of poetry as a way to say what can’t be said?&#0160;</p> <p><strong>DDS:&#0160;</strong>I believe there are truths conveyed in poetry that go beyond the limits of language, what Frost called “the sound of sense,” what Donald Hall called “the unsayable said.” I don’t think poems have so much to do with intention; poems are a kind of throbbing through words that accrues to music, what Stevens meant by “the dove in the belly.”</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I love that. Honestly, I would love to keep asking you questions just to read your responses. But I will stop for now. I thought maybe we could close with &quot;Dreaming of Hokusai at Sloan-Kettering.&quot;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Dreaming of Hokusai at Sloan-Kettering</strong><br /><strong>&#0160;</strong></p> <p>Because all the animals are kings and queens,<br />I wait for the rain to paint me; I long<br />to dream the butterfly dreaming me while<br />the blood lotuses into test tube,<br />pillow cherry blossoms the lolling head,<br />and all over the world the living still<br />go on living despite the needle’s truth,<br />stitching saline into this purple vein,<br />as a hawk is painted onto a bough<br />and the window beads itself up with rain.</p> <p><br />The great wave continues to crash against<br />the clear sky, peasants fly kites from the roofs<br />that appear higher than Mount Fuji’s snow,<br />the fisherman’s wife fucks an octopus<br />or two, and the paddies remain tended<br />even when the south wind blows your hat off.</p> <p><br />We, in our frail bodies, are woodcut, sketched<br />on silk, silkworms ourselves, ideograms<br />for dying, riders galloping a ridge<br />toward a mountain we will never reach.</p> <p><br />There is no way to paint the swan in you,<br />or the heron taking wing, the village,<br />its terrible stillness before the fire.</p> <p><br />For now, you have only the orderly<br />joking with the phlebotomist, asking<br />her to draw your blood in a bikini<br />next time; this is your temple, your tea house,<br />your watermill frozen in its churning,<br />a wheel of rivulets like braided hair,<br />or like the sutures in your throat and chest.</p> <p><br />And the hospital might trick you into<br />believing this pain might make you holy,<br />but you are already holy, the stooped<br />millworker with a turtle on a string,<br />the surface of a lake without ripples,<br />the portly monk laughing in his Saki,<br />the lumberjacks sawing planks in heaven,<br />the sound of traffic on 68th Street,<br />the sill cleaving flight, a regent of air.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3807b17200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="20170906_dante01_jwc" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3807b17200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3807b17200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="20170906_dante01_jwc" /></a></strong>Dante Di Stefano is the author of two poetry collections: <em>Love Is a Stone Endlessly in Flight </em>(Brighthorse Books, 2016) and<em> Ill Angels </em>(Etruscan Press, 2019). His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in <em>Prairie Schooner, The Sewanee Review, The Writer’s Chronicle,</em> and elsewhere. Along with María Isabel Àlvarez, he is the co-editor of the anthology, <em>Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America</em> (NYQ Books, 2018).&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad380671c200c Nin Andrews posted something https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-12-10T17:51:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad380671b200chttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2018-12-10T17:51:24Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970dListening to Grace Cavalieri's Recent Interview with George Bilgere (by Nin Andrews)tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad3c60a3a200b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-12-10T14:53:14Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60a38200bListening to Grace Cavalieri's Recent Interview with George Bilgere (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-12-10T14:53:14Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>In my recent&#0160;<a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/12/an-interview-with-nicole-santalucia-by-nin-andrews.html">interview and classroom visit with Nicole Santalucia</a>, Nicole and I talked about confessional poetry, and her students joined in the conversation. I was so interested in her students’ questions and comments, I am still thinking about them. One of the questions that stuck with was about the difference between autobiographical and confessional poetry.&#0160; I am paraphrasing here, but the student seemed to be asking, <em>If you write about your life, then aren’t you a confessional poet? </em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60923200b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Bilgere_comp" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60923200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60923200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Bilgere_comp" /></a>The question came at the end of our time together, but I would have liked to have answered by talking about poets like Frank O’Hara, Billy Collins, and George Bilgere, poets who serve as a nice contrast to confessional poets. Or better yet, by playing <a href="https://www.gracecavalieri.com/images/George_Bilgere.mp3">Grace Cavalieri’s recent interview for <em>The Poet and the Poem</em>&#0160;with George Bilgere</a> in which Bilgere talks about his teaching method, his young boys, his writing process, and ideals. “The challenge for me,” Bilgere explained in the interview, “is to try to write interesting poems out of a commonplace life.”</p> <p>About George Bilgere, Grace comments, “He can take an ordinary event and make it a knife through the heart.” The interview is short, entertaining, and so worth listening to, I want everyone to hear it. But if you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing,&#0160;be sure to listen to the unpublished poem, ““For the Slip and Slide,” that is about twenty minutes in. It’s a masterpiece.</p> <p>Below is the title poem from his most recent collection.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Blood Pages</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Someone gave my little boy<br />this illustrated book about whales<br />and every day he carries it to me,<br />demanding we read through its pages<br />about the biggest whales, the blue ones,<br />and the fiercest whales, the suave<br />orcas in their tuxes, and the mild<br />sperm whales with their baleen<br />and blow holes and benevolent gaze.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Which is fine. Everyone likes whales,<br />but of course being a boy<br />he wants to focus on the &quot;blood pages,&quot;<br />as he calls them, just two of them<br />inserted like an accidental dose<br />of reality in the middle of the book,<br />where the great whales are hauled up<br />like minnows onto the decks<br />of the Japanese trawlers, their strength<br />broken against the diesel winches,<br />blood pouring from the smoking wounds<br />where the harpoons struck and exploded.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I want to page forward to the dolphins<br />somersaulting above Sea World, but he<br />wants to see leviathan stripped<br />of his lordliness, skinned<br />alive on an ocean of blood<br />by small men with their scarlet blades,<br />their watch caps and cigarettes,<br />making good money on the long cruise<br />but nonetheless longing for home,<br />for the touch of their wives,<br />for their own children on their laps.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60979200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="DSC05269" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60979200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60979200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="DSC05269" /></a>George Bilgere’s seventh book of poetry,&#0160;<em>Blood Pages,</em>&#0160;was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2018. Bilgere has received grants and awards from the Pushcart Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Witter Bynner Foundation through the Library of Congress, and the Ohio Arts Council.&#0160;</p> <p>He has been awarded the Midland Authors Prize, the May Swenson Award, the Ohioana Poetry Prize, the Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature, the University of Akron Poetry Prize, and a Creative Workforce Fellowship through the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture in Cleveland.&#0160;</p> <p>Bilgere is familiar to National Public Radio listeners from his many appearances on Garrison KeillorÍs&#0160;<em>The WriterÍs Almanac</em><em>&#0160;</em>and&#0160;<em>A Prairie Home Companion.</em>&#0160;He teaches at John Carroll University in Cleveland and hosts a weekly poetry radio show on WJCU.FM called&#0160;<em>Wordplay.</em>&#0160;He has a marvelous wife and two incredibly cute little boys.</p> <p>In my recent&#0160;<a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/12/an-interview-with-nicole-santalucia-by-nin-andrews.html">interview and classroom visit with Nicole Santalucia</a>, Nicole and I talked about confessional poetry, and her students joined in the conversation. I was so interested in her students’ questions and comments, I am still thinking about them. One of the questions that stuck with was about the difference between autobiographical and confessional poetry.&#0160; I am paraphrasing here, but the student seemed to be asking, <em>If you write about your life, then aren’t you a confessional poet? </em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60923200b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Bilgere_comp" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60923200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60923200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Bilgere_comp" /></a>The question came at the end of our time together, but I would have liked to have answered by talking about poets like Frank O’Hara, Billy Collins, and George Bilgere, poets who serve as a nice contrast to confessional poets. Or better yet, by playing <a href="https://www.gracecavalieri.com/images/George_Bilgere.mp3">Grace Cavalieri’s recent interview for <em>The Poet and the Poem</em>&#0160;with George Bilgere</a> in which Bilgere talks about his teaching method, his young boys, his writing process, and ideals. “The challenge for me,” Bilgere explained in the interview, “is to try to write interesting poems out of a commonplace life.”</p> <p>About George Bilgere, Grace comments, “He can take an ordinary event and make it a knife through the heart.” The interview is short, entertaining, and so worth listening to, I want everyone to hear it. But if you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing,&#0160;be sure to listen to the unpublished poem, ““For the Slip and Slide,” that is about twenty minutes in. It’s a masterpiece.</p> <p>Below is the title poem from his most recent collection.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Blood Pages</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Someone gave my little boy<br />this illustrated book about whales<br />and every day he carries it to me,<br />demanding we read through its pages<br />about the biggest whales, the blue ones,<br />and the fiercest whales, the suave<br />orcas in their tuxes, and the mild<br />sperm whales with their baleen<br />and blow holes and benevolent gaze.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Which is fine. Everyone likes whales,<br />but of course being a boy<br />he wants to focus on the &quot;blood pages,&quot;<br />as he calls them, just two of them<br />inserted like an accidental dose<br />of reality in the middle of the book,<br />where the great whales are hauled up<br />like minnows onto the decks<br />of the Japanese trawlers, their strength<br />broken against the diesel winches,<br />blood pouring from the smoking wounds<br />where the harpoons struck and exploded.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I want to page forward to the dolphins<br />somersaulting above Sea World, but he<br />wants to see leviathan stripped<br />of his lordliness, skinned<br />alive on an ocean of blood<br />by small men with their scarlet blades,<br />their watch caps and cigarettes,<br />making good money on the long cruise<br />but nonetheless longing for home,<br />for the touch of their wives,<br />for their own children on their laps.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60979200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="DSC05269" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60979200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c60979200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="DSC05269" /></a>George Bilgere’s seventh book of poetry,&#0160;<em>Blood Pages,</em>&#0160;was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2018. Bilgere has received grants and awards from the Pushcart Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Witter Bynner Foundation through the Library of Congress, and the Ohio Arts Council.&#0160;</p> <p>He has been awarded the Midland Authors Prize, the May Swenson Award, the Ohioana Poetry Prize, the Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature, the University of Akron Poetry Prize, and a Creative Workforce Fellowship through the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture in Cleveland.&#0160;</p> <p>Bilgere is familiar to National Public Radio listeners from his many appearances on Garrison KeillorÍs&#0160;<em>The WriterÍs Almanac</em><em>&#0160;</em>and&#0160;<em>A Prairie Home Companion.</em>&#0160;He teaches at John Carroll University in Cleveland and hosts a weekly poetry radio show on WJCU.FM called&#0160;<em>Wordplay.</em>&#0160;He has a marvelous wife and two incredibly cute little boys.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad3a54bd3200d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-12-05T19:20:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a54bd1200dAn Interview with Nicole Santalucia (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-12-05T19:20:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>&#0160;</p> <p>Ever since my interview with <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/11/an-interview-with-january-gill-oneil-by-nin-andrews.html">January Gill O’Neil</a>, I have been thinking about the question of truth in poetry, especially in confessional and autobiographical poetry. So, a few weeks ago, I had the honor of joining two of Nicole Santalucia’s creative writing classes by Skype, and I talked a bit about this topic. I confessed that I was not a particular fan of confessional poetry, and the students (such amazing and inspired students!) had so many interesting comments and questions. Nicole, herself asked, <em>Do you think I have fallen too deeply into the confessional well?</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c50140200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Spoiled Meat cover (2)" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c50140200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c50140200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Spoiled Meat cover (2)" /></a><br />I love that term, the confessional well. I decided I wanted to ask Nicole questions about her sense of herself as a confessional poet and her new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Spoiled-Meat-Nicole-Santalucia/dp/099959303X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1543940173&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=nicole+santalucia">Spoiled </a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Spoiled-Meat-Nicole-Santalucia/dp/099959303X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1543940173&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=nicole+santalucia">Meat</a><em>, </em>the winner of the Charlotte Mew Prize.&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA</strong>: First, I want to continue our conversation that began with your class. Can you elaborate on that term, confessional well? I think that should be the title of a poem!</p> <p><strong>NS:&#0160;</strong>I must confess my concern about being self-centered, yet I am unapologetic that my poems bear a precise relationship to my personal life.&#0160;&#0160;The confessional well is the capital P Private, the place in the psyche where secrets harbor, the place where only the “I” can retrieve what’s inside. This designated well for confessions is also a dumping zone and a workspace, a mode of self-reflection and personal inventory.&#0160;</p> <p>A confessional well is comparable to a fountain of truth, I guess. Wells and fountains are both structures that contain water. Confessions and truths are accessed similarly and create a sense of agency during the process.</p> <p>My confessional well is occupied by more than personal experiences—my failures, successes, pains, traumas, etc.—because its foundation is permeable. It’s like a hydraulic fracking site with a drilling team injecting chemicals, sand, and water. What I mean is that there are pollutants and pressures—environmental and societal—that infiltrate my well of truth.</p> <p>A confessional is also an enclosed stall in a church that scares the shit out of me, and, well….</p> <p>NA: I love what you are saying here. But I am somewhat surprised that you consider yourself a confessional poet. Do you think that the opening poem, “The Chicken with a Broken Beak,” in your wonderful new poetry collection, is a confessional poem?&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>The Chicken with a Broken Beak</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I want to be the chicken in the front seat of that Cadillac<br />driving down Route 11.&#0160;The chicken that reaches<br />for the steering wheel when there’s another chicken<br />in the road. The chicken that changes a flat tire<br />and the chicken that doesn’t get beat up for loving<br />other chickens. I want to be the red feathered chicken<br />with white feathered chicks. The chicken with big breasts<br />that doesn’t wear a bra. The chicken that can actually fly;<br />I’d soar over Pennsylvania, over cornfields,<br />and over the prison. I’d free caged chickens<br />and dig graves for dead chickens.<br />I’d tie a dollar to a string and catch the guards<br />who guard jailed chickens. I’d wear my human costume,<br />patrol the highways, and pull over chicken trucks.<br />Maybe I want to be a chicken because a chicken’s<br />life is short; a chicken’s panic is usually caged.<br />Maybe I am chicken when I don’t hold my wife’s hand<br />at the movies or on a walk through town. I’m chicken<br />when I pull my arm off her shoulder after someone<br />whispers, eww, homos. Chicken feathers have taken over<br />my face and skin and courage. I’m the chicken<br />craning my neck through bars and the chicken<br />with a broken beak.<br />&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NS: </strong>My mode for writing is often rooted in the confessional, but my poems don’t always confess. What I admit in a poem sometimes reveals a vulnerability, but it doesn’t cause shame or embarrassment. Besides, there’s less to be embarrassed about these days. God forbid the G, L, A, or P words: Gay, Lesbian, Alcoholic, and Period. Okay, when I was 10 years old I was embarrassed of all of these words. I was embarrassed to be myself for many years. Now, a large part of my identity and volunteer work is very much connected to being a lesbian and recovering alcoholic.</p> <p>I’ve seen poets wince at the word confessional as if it’s a dirtyword or a weakness. I am not weakened as a poet or a person when I reveal personal truths in my work.&#0160;</p> <p>Yes, “The Chicken with a Broken Beak,” is confessional. I am the scared chicken and clearly indicate this in the poem. The poem confesses fear and a disturbing incident from the personal “I” – this is not a persona. Deanna is my wife.&#0160;&#0160;I yearn and dream to be the chicken that can fly, but I am a cowered when ridiculed for being who I am/who we are as a couple and the scar/broken beak reveals a truth: that I feel embarrassed at times for not having enough courage to stick up for myself and my relationship.</p> <p><strong>NA</strong>: I think it’s your sense of humor, often a dark humor, that makes me think of you as something other than confessional.&#0160;&#0160;Humor and confessional poetry don’t usually go hand-in-hand.&#0160;I had to laugh out loud at your poem, “Business Men.”&#0160;&#0160;Was this inspired by our pussy-grabbing president?&#0160;&#0160;You don’t think this is a confessional poem, do you?&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Business Men</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I heard about how good the pussy is on the market these days.<br />Men go door to door selling pussy from their briefcases.<br />Just the other day Dick and his wife, Jane,<br />started to seriously consider an investment in pussy.<br />Jane told Dick he’s nuts, that pussy loses value,<br />how it is no different than the depreciation of a car.<br />She told him that buying into pussy is like buying a coffin<br />to lay down and take a nap in; Jane’s been lying<br />in her pussy coffin for years.<br />Sometimes pussy is like a giant hairy taco<br />that will swallow you whole if your face gets too close.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The pussy truck parks next to the taco truck<br />at the farmer’s market. Jane recommends the pussy<br />with the white gills, red stem, the one that wears a skirt<br />and has a bulbous sack. There are men who forage<br />for pussy in broad day light. They dig their hands<br />into the soil and pluck whole pussies from the earth in one grab.<br />The pussy beneath the soil is not calling to a man<br />as if he were a thing from the dirt like a tuber.<br />The pussy that grows at the edge of the woods<br />is usually on state owned land.<br />Trespassers walk through the woods,<br />fill their briefcases, then head straight<br />to town to ring your doorbell.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NS: </strong>Yes, this is a response to our pussy-grabbing president. Less of a confessional, but there’s a personal I in the first line who hears about how good the pussy is on the market these days…This is certainly an angry lesbian—a persona that aligns with everything about me right now<strong>.</strong></p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I also wondered about the poems about the Normal School. What inspired these poems? I’ll post one here so people can get a sense of them.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>The Normal School Lesson Plans</strong></p> <p><em>Shippensburg, Pennsylvania</em></p> <p><strong>Lesson Plan</strong>: So, unless the man was willing to take a whole ox-worth of fishhooks,<br />he must have something else besides cattle for money; that is, he must<br />give something else in exchange for the half-dozen fishhooks which he wanted.<br />(<strong>Learning Outcome: This is male prostitution.)</strong></p> <p><strong>Lesson Plan:</strong>&#0160;Most mothers like children to have company,<br />but the children must realize a mother has housekeeping problems.<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: This is in-the-closet lesbianism.)</strong></p> <p><strong>Lesson Plan</strong>: If a man owning a goat wanted a tent, he sold a couple of them for twenty<br />pieces of iron and bought his tent for fifteen pieces. What might he do in the tent?<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: get a blowjob and pay for it with the profit of five pieces of</strong><br /><strong>iron.)</strong></p> <p><strong><em>&#0160;</em></strong><strong>Lesson Plan:</strong>&#0160;In 1868 two Swedish cabinet makers came from Sweden to Philadelphia<br />and started a business. Mr. Brown and Mr. White sold Mrs. Howe a cabinet.<br />What does Mrs. Howe keep in her cabinet and why?<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: Mrs. Howe keeps a lemon and vinegar solution in her cabinet.</strong><br /><strong>It is most likely used to clean her vagina.)</strong><br /><strong><em>&#0160;</em></strong><br /><strong>Lesson Plan:</strong>&#0160;“How many logs does it take to build a dam?” Asked Fred.<br />“Ah! That depends on the size of the dam,” said Aunt Kate.<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: Fred and Kate are not talking about logs and dams.</strong><br /><strong>This is a metaphor for incest.)</strong><br /><strong>&#0160;</strong><br /><strong>Lesson Plan:</strong>&#0160;Just then a hawk came flying over the pond.<br />“Stop, Stop!” said the frog. “Let me go. It’s the mouse you want.”<br />“I flew down for the mouse, it is true,” said the hawk,<br />“but I like frog much better, so I shall eat you first.”<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: men are like hawks; they want to eat you.)</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NS: </strong>I work at Shippensburg University, which was founded in 1871 as the Cumberland Valley State Normal School. It is a teaching college and a wonderful institution. I did some research a couple of summers ago and spent time in a rural, one-room schoolhouse that was in use from 1865 to 1954. The Normal School poems reflect language found in old lesson plans and lists of rules for female teachers during the 1890&#39;s to 1930&#39;s.</p> <p><strong>NA: </strong>Now that you are talking about Shippensburg University, I thought I’d return to your amazing class! Especially because, much to my delight, three of your students wrote defenses of confessional poetry! As well as poems titled “My Confessional Well.” I want to include just a few excerpts of what they wrote here, and I have to say—what a joy to receive their comments and poems! One student, Erika Mundock wrote: “Confessional poetry, to me, is a way to talk about the things I never knew how to talk about before.” Another, Taylor Caudill, wrote, “I only started writing a few months ago and I am slowly realizing the power of the confessional. It’s not a way to solve issues but to help cope/understand them . . . &quot; And Emily Mitchell explained: “I draw a lot of inspiration from the confessional poets I mentioned earlier (Plath, Sexton, Lowell), but I think their brutal honesty influences all of contemporary poetry.&#0160; All poetry comes from a place deep inside of the poet, the individuals we regard as confessional poets simply paved the way for us to do that without hesitation or fear.”</p> <p>I love how engaged your students are!&#0160;I also love that they composed poems on the topic. I am pasting below excerpts from their poems--or rather a blend because I think their &#0160;poems work so well together. &#0160;The first stanza is by Taylor Claudill, the second stanzas, by Emily Mitchell, and the third, by Erika Mundock.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>My Confessional Well</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>1.</p> <p>I think the soil drew me here, to this field –<br />This loose, crumbling dirt, surrounded<br />By cornstalks reaching their green arms<br />Up to the sun and clouds that feed them.<br />But this empty circle of earth waited<br />For me to arrive.<br />Even the cornstalks knew I was coming.<br />They told me to take my shoes off<br />And sink my feet into the cool, damp soil.<br />So I listened and felt my purpose.<br />The Earth told me to build my well here.<br />She said,&#0160;<em>Build the confessional well&#0160;</em>–<br />The one that I wanted.<br />The one that I shamed myself for wanting.<br />The one that I didn’t deserve.<br />The one I had no right to.<br />The one with no blueprints.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>2.</p> <p>Instead, I scoop up my addiction,<br />my self-hatred, my #MeToo,<br />and pour them out on parchment.<br />I decorate the black ink with<br />sunflowers and bee boxes<br />with my shoes and my fingernails<br />with white houses and white clouds<br />until the parchment is soaked<br />wet with ink of every color, of every hue.</p> <p>&#0160;<br />I hang it up to dry on the clothesline<br />strung between trees<br />behind my dead grandmother’s house.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>3.</p> <p>Sometimes I find myself at the bottom<br />of the confessional well, where red brick walls<br />crumble at my touch and my vain attempts<br />of escape always end with my fingernails<br />peeling back from their beds and blood<br />dripping into the dirty, ankle-deep water below.</p> <p><br />Without fail, I wake from this nightmare,<br />bruises around my neck.<br />Figures of the dead once again whisper<br />their misery upon me.<br />Still I go to sleep every night hoping to return<br />to the well, where<br />unspeakable dread and I find solace.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA</strong>: I thought we might close with one more poem from you. How about one of your poems about Pennsylvania?</p> <p><strong>NS: </strong>Sounds good. Let’s end on thumpthumpthump, which is pretty much the sound of fear and truth hitting the bottom of the confessional well.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Thumping in Central Pennsylvania</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The cows and apple trees and tractor trailers<br />thump between the prison yard and the university.<br />Sometimes I chase a herd of cows out of my classroom<br />and the earth thumps. The word of the lord thumps.<br />The word thump breaks my ribs. Brown battery operated<br />cows thump through traffic. Factories thump and farmers<br />thump. The warehouses are full of thumps. The sky thumps<br />to the ground when I get home from work and kiss my wife.<br />When two women fall asleep in the same bed<br />the stars thumpthumpthumpthumpthump<br />like bullets hovering over our heads.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c5014d200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Nicole 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c5014d200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c5014d200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Nicole 2" /></a>Nicole Santalucia is the author of <em>Because I Did Not Die&#0160;</em>(Bordighera Press). She is a recipient of the Charlotte Mew Prize, the&#0160;Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize, and the Ruby Irene Poetry Prize.&#0160;Her non-fiction and poetry have appeared in publications such&#0160;as <em>The Cincinnati Review, The Florida Review, Out Magazine,&#0160;Paterson Literary Review, The Seventh Wave, Bayou Magazine, Gertrude, Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, The Boiler</em>, as well as numerous other journals. She teaches at&#0160;Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and has taught poetry&#0160;workshops in the Cumberland County Prison, Shippensburg&#0160;Public Library, Boys &amp; Girls Club, and nursing homes.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Ever since my interview with <a href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2018/11/an-interview-with-january-gill-oneil-by-nin-andrews.html">January Gill O’Neil</a>, I have been thinking about the question of truth in poetry, especially in confessional and autobiographical poetry. So, a few weeks ago, I had the honor of joining two of Nicole Santalucia’s creative writing classes by Skype, and I talked a bit about this topic. I confessed that I was not a particular fan of confessional poetry, and the students (such amazing and inspired students!) had so many interesting comments and questions. Nicole, herself asked, <em>Do you think I have fallen too deeply into the confessional well?</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c50140200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Spoiled Meat cover (2)" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c50140200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c50140200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Spoiled Meat cover (2)" /></a><br />I love that term, the confessional well. I decided I wanted to ask Nicole questions about her sense of herself as a confessional poet and her new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Spoiled-Meat-Nicole-Santalucia/dp/099959303X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1543940173&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=nicole+santalucia">Spoiled </a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Spoiled-Meat-Nicole-Santalucia/dp/099959303X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1543940173&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=nicole+santalucia">Meat</a><em>, </em>the winner of the Charlotte Mew Prize.&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA</strong>: First, I want to continue our conversation that began with your class. Can you elaborate on that term, confessional well? I think that should be the title of a poem!</p> <p><strong>NS:&#0160;</strong>I must confess my concern about being self-centered, yet I am unapologetic that my poems bear a precise relationship to my personal life.&#0160;&#0160;The confessional well is the capital P Private, the place in the psyche where secrets harbor, the place where only the “I” can retrieve what’s inside. This designated well for confessions is also a dumping zone and a workspace, a mode of self-reflection and personal inventory.&#0160;</p> <p>A confessional well is comparable to a fountain of truth, I guess. Wells and fountains are both structures that contain water. Confessions and truths are accessed similarly and create a sense of agency during the process.</p> <p>My confessional well is occupied by more than personal experiences—my failures, successes, pains, traumas, etc.—because its foundation is permeable. It’s like a hydraulic fracking site with a drilling team injecting chemicals, sand, and water. What I mean is that there are pollutants and pressures—environmental and societal—that infiltrate my well of truth.</p> <p>A confessional is also an enclosed stall in a church that scares the shit out of me, and, well….</p> <p>NA: I love what you are saying here. But I am somewhat surprised that you consider yourself a confessional poet. Do you think that the opening poem, “The Chicken with a Broken Beak,” in your wonderful new poetry collection, is a confessional poem?&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>The Chicken with a Broken Beak</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I want to be the chicken in the front seat of that Cadillac<br />driving down Route 11.&#0160;The chicken that reaches<br />for the steering wheel when there’s another chicken<br />in the road. The chicken that changes a flat tire<br />and the chicken that doesn’t get beat up for loving<br />other chickens. I want to be the red feathered chicken<br />with white feathered chicks. The chicken with big breasts<br />that doesn’t wear a bra. The chicken that can actually fly;<br />I’d soar over Pennsylvania, over cornfields,<br />and over the prison. I’d free caged chickens<br />and dig graves for dead chickens.<br />I’d tie a dollar to a string and catch the guards<br />who guard jailed chickens. I’d wear my human costume,<br />patrol the highways, and pull over chicken trucks.<br />Maybe I want to be a chicken because a chicken’s<br />life is short; a chicken’s panic is usually caged.<br />Maybe I am chicken when I don’t hold my wife’s hand<br />at the movies or on a walk through town. I’m chicken<br />when I pull my arm off her shoulder after someone<br />whispers, eww, homos. Chicken feathers have taken over<br />my face and skin and courage. I’m the chicken<br />craning my neck through bars and the chicken<br />with a broken beak.<br />&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NS: </strong>My mode for writing is often rooted in the confessional, but my poems don’t always confess. What I admit in a poem sometimes reveals a vulnerability, but it doesn’t cause shame or embarrassment. Besides, there’s less to be embarrassed about these days. God forbid the G, L, A, or P words: Gay, Lesbian, Alcoholic, and Period. Okay, when I was 10 years old I was embarrassed of all of these words. I was embarrassed to be myself for many years. Now, a large part of my identity and volunteer work is very much connected to being a lesbian and recovering alcoholic.</p> <p>I’ve seen poets wince at the word confessional as if it’s a dirtyword or a weakness. I am not weakened as a poet or a person when I reveal personal truths in my work.&#0160;</p> <p>Yes, “The Chicken with a Broken Beak,” is confessional. I am the scared chicken and clearly indicate this in the poem. The poem confesses fear and a disturbing incident from the personal “I” – this is not a persona. Deanna is my wife.&#0160;&#0160;I yearn and dream to be the chicken that can fly, but I am a cowered when ridiculed for being who I am/who we are as a couple and the scar/broken beak reveals a truth: that I feel embarrassed at times for not having enough courage to stick up for myself and my relationship.</p> <p><strong>NA</strong>: I think it’s your sense of humor, often a dark humor, that makes me think of you as something other than confessional.&#0160;&#0160;Humor and confessional poetry don’t usually go hand-in-hand.&#0160;I had to laugh out loud at your poem, “Business Men.”&#0160;&#0160;Was this inspired by our pussy-grabbing president?&#0160;&#0160;You don’t think this is a confessional poem, do you?&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Business Men</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>I heard about how good the pussy is on the market these days.<br />Men go door to door selling pussy from their briefcases.<br />Just the other day Dick and his wife, Jane,<br />started to seriously consider an investment in pussy.<br />Jane told Dick he’s nuts, that pussy loses value,<br />how it is no different than the depreciation of a car.<br />She told him that buying into pussy is like buying a coffin<br />to lay down and take a nap in; Jane’s been lying<br />in her pussy coffin for years.<br />Sometimes pussy is like a giant hairy taco<br />that will swallow you whole if your face gets too close.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The pussy truck parks next to the taco truck<br />at the farmer’s market. Jane recommends the pussy<br />with the white gills, red stem, the one that wears a skirt<br />and has a bulbous sack. There are men who forage<br />for pussy in broad day light. They dig their hands<br />into the soil and pluck whole pussies from the earth in one grab.<br />The pussy beneath the soil is not calling to a man<br />as if he were a thing from the dirt like a tuber.<br />The pussy that grows at the edge of the woods<br />is usually on state owned land.<br />Trespassers walk through the woods,<br />fill their briefcases, then head straight<br />to town to ring your doorbell.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NS: </strong>Yes, this is a response to our pussy-grabbing president. Less of a confessional, but there’s a personal I in the first line who hears about how good the pussy is on the market these days…This is certainly an angry lesbian—a persona that aligns with everything about me right now<strong>.</strong></p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I also wondered about the poems about the Normal School. What inspired these poems? I’ll post one here so people can get a sense of them.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>The Normal School Lesson Plans</strong></p> <p><em>Shippensburg, Pennsylvania</em></p> <p><strong>Lesson Plan</strong>: So, unless the man was willing to take a whole ox-worth of fishhooks,<br />he must have something else besides cattle for money; that is, he must<br />give something else in exchange for the half-dozen fishhooks which he wanted.<br />(<strong>Learning Outcome: This is male prostitution.)</strong></p> <p><strong>Lesson Plan:</strong>&#0160;Most mothers like children to have company,<br />but the children must realize a mother has housekeeping problems.<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: This is in-the-closet lesbianism.)</strong></p> <p><strong>Lesson Plan</strong>: If a man owning a goat wanted a tent, he sold a couple of them for twenty<br />pieces of iron and bought his tent for fifteen pieces. What might he do in the tent?<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: get a blowjob and pay for it with the profit of five pieces of</strong><br /><strong>iron.)</strong></p> <p><strong><em>&#0160;</em></strong><strong>Lesson Plan:</strong>&#0160;In 1868 two Swedish cabinet makers came from Sweden to Philadelphia<br />and started a business. Mr. Brown and Mr. White sold Mrs. Howe a cabinet.<br />What does Mrs. Howe keep in her cabinet and why?<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: Mrs. Howe keeps a lemon and vinegar solution in her cabinet.</strong><br /><strong>It is most likely used to clean her vagina.)</strong><br /><strong><em>&#0160;</em></strong><br /><strong>Lesson Plan:</strong>&#0160;“How many logs does it take to build a dam?” Asked Fred.<br />“Ah! That depends on the size of the dam,” said Aunt Kate.<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: Fred and Kate are not talking about logs and dams.</strong><br /><strong>This is a metaphor for incest.)</strong><br /><strong>&#0160;</strong><br /><strong>Lesson Plan:</strong>&#0160;Just then a hawk came flying over the pond.<br />“Stop, Stop!” said the frog. “Let me go. It’s the mouse you want.”<br />“I flew down for the mouse, it is true,” said the hawk,<br />“but I like frog much better, so I shall eat you first.”<br /><strong>(Learning Outcome: men are like hawks; they want to eat you.)</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NS: </strong>I work at Shippensburg University, which was founded in 1871 as the Cumberland Valley State Normal School. It is a teaching college and a wonderful institution. I did some research a couple of summers ago and spent time in a rural, one-room schoolhouse that was in use from 1865 to 1954. The Normal School poems reflect language found in old lesson plans and lists of rules for female teachers during the 1890&#39;s to 1930&#39;s.</p> <p><strong>NA: </strong>Now that you are talking about Shippensburg University, I thought I’d return to your amazing class! Especially because, much to my delight, three of your students wrote defenses of confessional poetry! As well as poems titled “My Confessional Well.” I want to include just a few excerpts of what they wrote here, and I have to say—what a joy to receive their comments and poems! One student, Erika Mundock wrote: “Confessional poetry, to me, is a way to talk about the things I never knew how to talk about before.” Another, Taylor Caudill, wrote, “I only started writing a few months ago and I am slowly realizing the power of the confessional. It’s not a way to solve issues but to help cope/understand them . . . &quot; And Emily Mitchell explained: “I draw a lot of inspiration from the confessional poets I mentioned earlier (Plath, Sexton, Lowell), but I think their brutal honesty influences all of contemporary poetry.&#0160; All poetry comes from a place deep inside of the poet, the individuals we regard as confessional poets simply paved the way for us to do that without hesitation or fear.”</p> <p>I love how engaged your students are!&#0160;I also love that they composed poems on the topic. I am pasting below excerpts from their poems--or rather a blend because I think their &#0160;poems work so well together. &#0160;The first stanza is by Taylor Claudill, the second stanzas, by Emily Mitchell, and the third, by Erika Mundock.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>My Confessional Well</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>1.</p> <p>I think the soil drew me here, to this field –<br />This loose, crumbling dirt, surrounded<br />By cornstalks reaching their green arms<br />Up to the sun and clouds that feed them.<br />But this empty circle of earth waited<br />For me to arrive.<br />Even the cornstalks knew I was coming.<br />They told me to take my shoes off<br />And sink my feet into the cool, damp soil.<br />So I listened and felt my purpose.<br />The Earth told me to build my well here.<br />She said,&#0160;<em>Build the confessional well&#0160;</em>–<br />The one that I wanted.<br />The one that I shamed myself for wanting.<br />The one that I didn’t deserve.<br />The one I had no right to.<br />The one with no blueprints.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>2.</p> <p>Instead, I scoop up my addiction,<br />my self-hatred, my #MeToo,<br />and pour them out on parchment.<br />I decorate the black ink with<br />sunflowers and bee boxes<br />with my shoes and my fingernails<br />with white houses and white clouds<br />until the parchment is soaked<br />wet with ink of every color, of every hue.</p> <p>&#0160;<br />I hang it up to dry on the clothesline<br />strung between trees<br />behind my dead grandmother’s house.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>3.</p> <p>Sometimes I find myself at the bottom<br />of the confessional well, where red brick walls<br />crumble at my touch and my vain attempts<br />of escape always end with my fingernails<br />peeling back from their beds and blood<br />dripping into the dirty, ankle-deep water below.</p> <p><br />Without fail, I wake from this nightmare,<br />bruises around my neck.<br />Figures of the dead once again whisper<br />their misery upon me.<br />Still I go to sleep every night hoping to return<br />to the well, where<br />unspeakable dread and I find solace.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA</strong>: I thought we might close with one more poem from you. How about one of your poems about Pennsylvania?</p> <p><strong>NS: </strong>Sounds good. Let’s end on thumpthumpthump, which is pretty much the sound of fear and truth hitting the bottom of the confessional well.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Thumping in Central Pennsylvania</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The cows and apple trees and tractor trailers<br />thump between the prison yard and the university.<br />Sometimes I chase a herd of cows out of my classroom<br />and the earth thumps. The word of the lord thumps.<br />The word thump breaks my ribs. Brown battery operated<br />cows thump through traffic. Factories thump and farmers<br />thump. The warehouses are full of thumps. The sky thumps<br />to the ground when I get home from work and kiss my wife.<br />When two women fall asleep in the same bed<br />the stars thumpthumpthumpthumpthump<br />like bullets hovering over our heads.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c5014d200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Nicole 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c5014d200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c5014d200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Nicole 2" /></a>Nicole Santalucia is the author of <em>Because I Did Not Die&#0160;</em>(Bordighera Press). She is a recipient of the Charlotte Mew Prize, the&#0160;Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize, and the Ruby Irene Poetry Prize.&#0160;Her non-fiction and poetry have appeared in publications such&#0160;as <em>The Cincinnati Review, The Florida Review, Out Magazine,&#0160;Paterson Literary Review, The Seventh Wave, Bayou Magazine, Gertrude, Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, The Boiler</em>, as well as numerous other journals. She teaches at&#0160;Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and has taught poetry&#0160;workshops in the Cumberland County Prison, Shippensburg&#0160;Public Library, Boys &amp; Girls Club, and nursing homes.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad3c23443200b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-11-24T19:30:14Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3c23441200bAn Interview with January Gill O'Neil (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-11-24T19:30:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>I had the honor of reading with January Gill O’Neil at Brookline Booksmith’s in Brookline, Mass. back in March 2010 when her first book had just been published. <em>What a thrill it was!</em> Afterwards we sat at a table with friends, signing books and chatting. Like me, the audience was profoundly moved by January’s poems and performance, and everyone was singing her praises.<em>&#0160;</em>Now, just in time for Christmas shopping, her third book, <a href="https://cavankerrypress.org/product/rewilding">Rewilding</a> is available from CavanKerry Press. All three books of her books are profoundly autobiographical and manage to pull me into her world with such grace and ease, I want to keep reading and rereading her work. Needless to say, I was delighted when she agreed to do an interview.<br /> <br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad37c650e200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Rewilding_cvrlowres" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad37c650e200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad37c650e200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Rewilding_cvrlowres" /></a>NA: Do you ever feel self-conscious, or exposed, when writing your deeply personal poems?</p> <p>JGO: No. As I tell my students, you can write about anything—but you don’t have to publish everything you write. I’m a pretty up-front person. I don’t have anything to hide. That being said, I wouldn’t publish anything that might embarrass my family. But then again, I have a potty-training poem that gets eye rolls from the kids so there’s that.</p> <p>NA: I had a poetry professor once who hated what he called “dishonesty in poetry.” He hated it when poets use the first person, and then describe a life they have not lived--he said they were lying to their readers. But it seems to me that poets are more interested in writing a beautiful poem than telling the truth. In other words, given the choice between truth and beauty, most choose beauty. Yet you seem to be able to do both. Do you ever feel that you have to make that choice? What do you think about “lying” in poetry?</p> <p>JGO: No, I don’t think I have to make a choice; however, little lies are fine. I mean, at some point the poet is working in service to the poem. In order to do that, a writer has to let go of the origin story in favor of art. So, if the setting of a poem takes place during the day but works better for the narrative if it takes place at dusk, I’m OK with that.</p> <p>NA: I love the poem, “On Being Told I Look Like FLOTUS, New Years Party 2014.” I’d love you to post it below and say a few words about it?</p> <p>JGO: People say I bear a resemblance to our first lady. (I’m flattered but I don’t see it.) But on this occasion, it struck a nerve and I needed to respond poetically. In a strange twist of fate, I went to the White House in 2016 for a celebration of National Youth Poetry and while I did not meet Michelle Obama, I came awfully close. Rumor has it that my poem made the rounds that summer at the White House.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>On Being Told I Look Like FLOTUS, New Year’s Eve Party 2014</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Deep in my biceps I know it’s a complement, just as<br />I know this is an all-black-people-look-alike moment.<br />So I use the minimal amount of muscles to crack a smile.<br />All night he catches sight of me, or someone like me, standing<br />next to deconstructed cannoli and empty bottles of Prosecco.<br />And in that moment, I understand how little right any of us have<br />to be whoever we are—the constant tension<br />of making our way in this world on hope and change.<br /><em>You’re working your muscles to the point of failure,</em><br />Michelle Obama once said about her workout regimen,&#0160;<br />but she knows we wear our history in our darkness, in our patience.<br />A compliment is a complement—this I know, just as the clock<br />will always strike midnight and history repeats. This is how<br />I can wake up the next morning and love the world again.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>NA: I admire the arc of this book, how it moves from a broken place to one of union, from divorce to “rewilding.” At what point did you see this arc forming?</p> <p>JGO: Honestly, I can’t remember. Writing is so fluid that I just think of poems as poems, rather that arcs or themes. But yes, at some point the poems were living together in sin and I needed to make an honest manuscript out of them.</p> <p>NA: When did you know the title of the book?</p> <p>JGO: I saw a <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewild_the_world">TED Talk by George Monbiot</a>, who talked about the idea of rewilding the world as a way of saving the planet. I guess I liked the idea of saving myself. &#0160;</p> <p>NA: I also enjoyed the poem, “On Seeing Gwendolyn Brooks after Her Reading at LIU Brooklyn, February 1996.” Is Brooks a major influence? If you had to pick one poet, just one, and say he or she has influenced you the most, would it be Gwendolyn Brooks? <br /><br /></p> <p>JGO: Ms. Brooks is one of my influences. Meeting her was an experience I’ll never forget. But if I had to pick just one—which is hard because I’ve had many teachers and mentors—it would be Sharon Olds. I’ve also been influenced by Toi Derricotte, Lucille Clifton, Phil Levine, Galway Kinnell, and Marie Howe.</p> <p>NA: And what if you had pick one poem that has influenced you the most?</p> <p>JGO: Tough. I would say “The Victims” by Sharon Olds—not sure why. There’s a fierceness in her work that I admire, and that poem encapsulates it for me.</p> <p>But I also come back to “Gratitude” by Cornelius Eady, “Won’t You Celebrate with Me” by Lucille Clifton, “Keeping Things Whole” by Mark Strand.&#0160; Those poems are more like mantras for me.</p> <p>NA: Your children play a prominent role in your poetry. Do they read your poems? Offer opinions? Do you worry about what they will think?</p> <p>JGO: They are teens—they don’t want to read anything I give them, much less my work! I take them to readings that I think they will enjoy, a few times a year. At my last reading I read a poem about their father that I felt might be sensitive to them. So we talked about it before the reading, and they were fine with it.</p> <p>As I mentioned earlier, I would never publish anything that would embarrass my family, but I feel I have lots of room to write the truths that need to be told.</p> <p>NA: You are Conference Chair at the Portland AWP in March? You know how I shudder at the mere mention of the conference. Tell me one reason I should go this year.</p> <p>JGO: Me!</p> <p>And, our lineup this year us fabulous! The AWP conference staff—the entire AWP staff—has put together an amazing lineup including Colson Whitehead, Nikky Finney, Maxine Hong Kingston, Tayari Jones, Kaveh Akbar, and Cheryl Strayed. Yes, the conference is big, but I’ve learned over the years how to manage the experience, so I don’t get overwhelmed. I meet so many writers at the conference doing innovative, creative work. But I also meet MFA students who are just getting a glimpse of the literary world and how vast it can be, as well as professors who are opening doors for the next generation. AWP has been with me my whole literary career, so I’m happy serve the organization in any capacity I can.</p> <p>NA: You teach, write, blog, run workshops, run the Mass. Festival and AWP, and you are a single and rewilding mom. Do you sleep?</p> <p>JGO: No.</p> <p>But soon I’ll be stepping down from running the Mass Poetry Festival. It’s time. And I need to plan for our big move from Massachusetts to Mississippi! I was awarded the <a href="https://mfaenglish.olemiss.edu/john-and-renee-grisham-writers-in-residence/">John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence </a>&#0160;at the University of Mississippi, Oxford for 2018-2019. The kids and I are moving to Ole Miss!</p> <p>NA: I’d love to close with a poem, “Tinder,” another favorite of mine. &#0160;</p> <p>Admittedly, I wrote the poem “Tinder” before the dating site Tinder was a thing. Still, it works.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>TINDER</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Admit it: you miss the sex.<br /> That part of you closed up shop,<br /> hung a <em>Gone Fishing&#0160;</em>sign<br /> on the marriage after it ended.</p> <p><br /> It is an unattended campfire<br /> burning itself to the embers<br /> on a cold January night, bits of ash<br /> floating into the air and disappearing.</p> <p><br /> How can you not think of the campers<br /> around the fire ring, leaning in to warm<br /> their hands over hot tinder? Small kindling<br /> laid over tops of logs. Like a survivalist<br /> you have learned to live on less.</p> <p><br /> It burns from the inside out<br /> from a place you had forgotten,<br /> where the hot coals reveal what you really are:<br /> awake, ablaze, afraid, alone. A good camper<br /> never leaves a campfire unattended.</p> <p><br /> You know you are more like the alders<br /> bordering the encampment,<br /> more like a twig among the thin,<br /> brittle branches of leafless trees,</p> <p><br /> more like the pleasure of the tongue,<br /> the lift and compression of breasts held<br /> closer to the glowing red heart,<br /> closer and closer to earth and below<br /> to the in-door turned out-door<br /> after baby after baby. Oh, baby—<br /> anything can be ignited by a match.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a286d4200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="January O&#39;Neil -Photo Credit John Andrews" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a286d4200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a286d4200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="January O&#39;Neil -Photo Credit John Andrews" /></a>January Gill O’Neil is the author of<em>Rewilding (fall 2018)</em>, <em>Misery Islands (2014),</em>and <em>Underlife (2009)</em>, published by <a href="https://cavankerrypress.org/product/rewilding/">CavanKerry Press</a>. She is an assistant professor of English at Salem State University, and a board of trustees member with the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and Montserrat College of Art. From 2012-2018, she served as executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. A Cave Canem fellow, January’s poems and articles have appeared in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, <em>American Poetry Review</em>, <em>New England Review</em>, and <em>Ploughshares</em>, among others. In 2018, January was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, and was named the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence for 2019-2020 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She lives with her two children in Beverly, Massachusetts.</p> <p>I had the honor of reading with January Gill O’Neil at Brookline Booksmith’s in Brookline, Mass. back in March 2010 when her first book had just been published. <em>What a thrill it was!</em> Afterwards we sat at a table with friends, signing books and chatting. Like me, the audience was profoundly moved by January’s poems and performance, and everyone was singing her praises.<em>&#0160;</em>Now, just in time for Christmas shopping, her third book, <a href="https://cavankerrypress.org/product/rewilding">Rewilding</a> is available from CavanKerry Press. All three books of her books are profoundly autobiographical and manage to pull me into her world with such grace and ease, I want to keep reading and rereading her work. Needless to say, I was delighted when she agreed to do an interview.<br /> <br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad37c650e200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Rewilding_cvrlowres" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad37c650e200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad37c650e200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Rewilding_cvrlowres" /></a>NA: Do you ever feel self-conscious, or exposed, when writing your deeply personal poems?</p> <p>JGO: No. As I tell my students, you can write about anything—but you don’t have to publish everything you write. I’m a pretty up-front person. I don’t have anything to hide. That being said, I wouldn’t publish anything that might embarrass my family. But then again, I have a potty-training poem that gets eye rolls from the kids so there’s that.</p> <p>NA: I had a poetry professor once who hated what he called “dishonesty in poetry.” He hated it when poets use the first person, and then describe a life they have not lived--he said they were lying to their readers. But it seems to me that poets are more interested in writing a beautiful poem than telling the truth. In other words, given the choice between truth and beauty, most choose beauty. Yet you seem to be able to do both. Do you ever feel that you have to make that choice? What do you think about “lying” in poetry?</p> <p>JGO: No, I don’t think I have to make a choice; however, little lies are fine. I mean, at some point the poet is working in service to the poem. In order to do that, a writer has to let go of the origin story in favor of art. So, if the setting of a poem takes place during the day but works better for the narrative if it takes place at dusk, I’m OK with that.</p> <p>NA: I love the poem, “On Being Told I Look Like FLOTUS, New Years Party 2014.” I’d love you to post it below and say a few words about it?</p> <p>JGO: People say I bear a resemblance to our first lady. (I’m flattered but I don’t see it.) But on this occasion, it struck a nerve and I needed to respond poetically. In a strange twist of fate, I went to the White House in 2016 for a celebration of National Youth Poetry and while I did not meet Michelle Obama, I came awfully close. Rumor has it that my poem made the rounds that summer at the White House.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>On Being Told I Look Like FLOTUS, New Year’s Eve Party 2014</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Deep in my biceps I know it’s a complement, just as<br />I know this is an all-black-people-look-alike moment.<br />So I use the minimal amount of muscles to crack a smile.<br />All night he catches sight of me, or someone like me, standing<br />next to deconstructed cannoli and empty bottles of Prosecco.<br />And in that moment, I understand how little right any of us have<br />to be whoever we are—the constant tension<br />of making our way in this world on hope and change.<br /><em>You’re working your muscles to the point of failure,</em><br />Michelle Obama once said about her workout regimen,&#0160;<br />but she knows we wear our history in our darkness, in our patience.<br />A compliment is a complement—this I know, just as the clock<br />will always strike midnight and history repeats. This is how<br />I can wake up the next morning and love the world again.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>NA: I admire the arc of this book, how it moves from a broken place to one of union, from divorce to “rewilding.” At what point did you see this arc forming?</p> <p>JGO: Honestly, I can’t remember. Writing is so fluid that I just think of poems as poems, rather that arcs or themes. But yes, at some point the poems were living together in sin and I needed to make an honest manuscript out of them.</p> <p>NA: When did you know the title of the book?</p> <p>JGO: I saw a <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewild_the_world">TED Talk by George Monbiot</a>, who talked about the idea of rewilding the world as a way of saving the planet. I guess I liked the idea of saving myself. &#0160;</p> <p>NA: I also enjoyed the poem, “On Seeing Gwendolyn Brooks after Her Reading at LIU Brooklyn, February 1996.” Is Brooks a major influence? If you had to pick one poet, just one, and say he or she has influenced you the most, would it be Gwendolyn Brooks? <br /><br /></p> <p>JGO: Ms. Brooks is one of my influences. Meeting her was an experience I’ll never forget. But if I had to pick just one—which is hard because I’ve had many teachers and mentors—it would be Sharon Olds. I’ve also been influenced by Toi Derricotte, Lucille Clifton, Phil Levine, Galway Kinnell, and Marie Howe.</p> <p>NA: And what if you had pick one poem that has influenced you the most?</p> <p>JGO: Tough. I would say “The Victims” by Sharon Olds—not sure why. There’s a fierceness in her work that I admire, and that poem encapsulates it for me.</p> <p>But I also come back to “Gratitude” by Cornelius Eady, “Won’t You Celebrate with Me” by Lucille Clifton, “Keeping Things Whole” by Mark Strand.&#0160; Those poems are more like mantras for me.</p> <p>NA: Your children play a prominent role in your poetry. Do they read your poems? Offer opinions? Do you worry about what they will think?</p> <p>JGO: They are teens—they don’t want to read anything I give them, much less my work! I take them to readings that I think they will enjoy, a few times a year. At my last reading I read a poem about their father that I felt might be sensitive to them. So we talked about it before the reading, and they were fine with it.</p> <p>As I mentioned earlier, I would never publish anything that would embarrass my family, but I feel I have lots of room to write the truths that need to be told.</p> <p>NA: You are Conference Chair at the Portland AWP in March? You know how I shudder at the mere mention of the conference. Tell me one reason I should go this year.</p> <p>JGO: Me!</p> <p>And, our lineup this year us fabulous! The AWP conference staff—the entire AWP staff—has put together an amazing lineup including Colson Whitehead, Nikky Finney, Maxine Hong Kingston, Tayari Jones, Kaveh Akbar, and Cheryl Strayed. Yes, the conference is big, but I’ve learned over the years how to manage the experience, so I don’t get overwhelmed. I meet so many writers at the conference doing innovative, creative work. But I also meet MFA students who are just getting a glimpse of the literary world and how vast it can be, as well as professors who are opening doors for the next generation. AWP has been with me my whole literary career, so I’m happy serve the organization in any capacity I can.</p> <p>NA: You teach, write, blog, run workshops, run the Mass. Festival and AWP, and you are a single and rewilding mom. Do you sleep?</p> <p>JGO: No.</p> <p>But soon I’ll be stepping down from running the Mass Poetry Festival. It’s time. And I need to plan for our big move from Massachusetts to Mississippi! I was awarded the <a href="https://mfaenglish.olemiss.edu/john-and-renee-grisham-writers-in-residence/">John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence </a>&#0160;at the University of Mississippi, Oxford for 2018-2019. The kids and I are moving to Ole Miss!</p> <p>NA: I’d love to close with a poem, “Tinder,” another favorite of mine. &#0160;</p> <p>Admittedly, I wrote the poem “Tinder” before the dating site Tinder was a thing. Still, it works.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>TINDER</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Admit it: you miss the sex.<br /> That part of you closed up shop,<br /> hung a <em>Gone Fishing&#0160;</em>sign<br /> on the marriage after it ended.</p> <p><br /> It is an unattended campfire<br /> burning itself to the embers<br /> on a cold January night, bits of ash<br /> floating into the air and disappearing.</p> <p><br /> How can you not think of the campers<br /> around the fire ring, leaning in to warm<br /> their hands over hot tinder? Small kindling<br /> laid over tops of logs. Like a survivalist<br /> you have learned to live on less.</p> <p><br /> It burns from the inside out<br /> from a place you had forgotten,<br /> where the hot coals reveal what you really are:<br /> awake, ablaze, afraid, alone. A good camper<br /> never leaves a campfire unattended.</p> <p><br /> You know you are more like the alders<br /> bordering the encampment,<br /> more like a twig among the thin,<br /> brittle branches of leafless trees,</p> <p><br /> more like the pleasure of the tongue,<br /> the lift and compression of breasts held<br /> closer to the glowing red heart,<br /> closer and closer to earth and below<br /> to the in-door turned out-door<br /> after baby after baby. Oh, baby—<br /> anything can be ignited by a match.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a286d4200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="January O&#39;Neil -Photo Credit John Andrews" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a286d4200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a286d4200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="January O&#39;Neil -Photo Credit John Andrews" /></a>January Gill O’Neil is the author of<em>Rewilding (fall 2018)</em>, <em>Misery Islands (2014),</em>and <em>Underlife (2009)</em>, published by <a href="https://cavankerrypress.org/product/rewilding/">CavanKerry Press</a>. She is an assistant professor of English at Salem State University, and a board of trustees member with the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and Montserrat College of Art. From 2012-2018, she served as executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. A Cave Canem fellow, January’s poems and articles have appeared in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, <em>American Poetry Review</em>, <em>New England Review</em>, and <em>Ploughshares</em>, among others. In 2018, January was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, and was named the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence for 2019-2020 at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She lives with her two children in Beverly, Massachusetts.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad3b541d5200b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-10-01T19:41:38Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b541d3200bWhat We Don't Talk about (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-10-01T19:41:37Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>&#0160;</p> <p>It’s Monday, and I’m scrolling down my iPhone, reading headlines as I work out at the Y.&#0160; The top stories are the sexy ones. The hot question of the morning: Will the FBI really investigate Brett? That’s the question we women are talking about as we sweat. <em>Is it any surprise that this country is run by a bunch of rich and connected good old boys?&#0160;</em>a red-haired woman asks. Another nods and says that we all know they drink beer. They like beer. Lots of beer. And do they black out? Yes. Do you? No. I know what would happen if I did, especially if I hung out with good ol’ boys.&#0160;</p> <p>We talk. We sweat. We laugh. And then, as so often happens these days, someone begins to describe her own experience of being sexually abused.&#0160; Afterwards I think of all the woman I have heard tell their stories lately, and of all the poems and stories I have read about sexual abuse.&#0160; I think of how Nancy Mitchell wrote in her poem,&#0160;“Why I’m Here,”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>We all here want, hope, to be fixed—</p> <p>but chances of a successful retrofit</p> <p>to the body depend</p> <p>on remembering—</p> <p>most cases are too far</p> <p>gone—the damage.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And then I think of other topics in the news these days that worry me. Other cases that I fear are “too far gone—the damage.” Topics that I rarely overhear anyone talk about at the Y or Starbucks or anywhere else. The environment is the top of my list. &#0160;I feel a real sense of urgency. Time is not on&#0160;our side. Today’s headline:&#0160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/climate/epa-trump-mercury-rule.html">The Trump Administration Prepares a Major Weakening of Mercury Emission Rules</a>.</p> <p>Climate change is the primary reason I worry about Kavanaugh (and probably anyone Trump will pick). I fear his anti-regulation stance, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/climate/kavanaugh-environment-supreme-court.html">the fact that he will further handicap the EPA, stripping its authority to enforce environmental regulations on constitutional grounds.</a></p> <p>But this is not something I talk about much. When I do, people stare at me blankly.</p> <p>Last summer I spoke with a board member for one of the nation’s major conservation groups about people’s lack of concern or awareness of environmental issues. I asked him if his group could think of a way to improve their messaging. &#0160;He answered that they have been trying. They have done research on the effectiveness of outreach and advertisements. Their conclusion: the ads are completely ineffective. He added that neither floods nor hurricanes&#0160;nor fires have raised people’s concerns. Doomsday predictions do nothing. &#0160;People tend to think that Doomsday will happen to others, not themselves.&#0160;</p> <p>Then he asked if I thought poets might have any insights into how we might tackle the problem. Do I have a favorite environmental poem? &#0160;I have been wondering about that ever since. I do love this poem by David Bottoms, which depicts the way we keep living our lives and ignoring the environment as best we can.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Foul Ball</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The river was off-limits, but occasionally a foul ball would fly</p> <p>back</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>over the press box, over the narrow drive</p> <p>and down the hill,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>and there we were—where what we called the ballpark rock</p> <p>jutted into the Etowah.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>On hot nights the stench would make us gag.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Two miles below the rendering plant</p> <p>and chicken parts still flooded up in the pool beyond the rock—</p> <p>clots of dirty feathers, feet,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>an occasional head with glazed eyes wide.</p> <p>We’d hold our noses and try to breathe through our mouths.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Once though, the smell was too much</p> <p>and we had to give it up.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Listen, it wasn’t what you think. It was only Little League,</p> <p>and they gave us free ice cream</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>for retrieving a foul. No, we weren’t overcome</p> <p>by thoughts of filth, disease,</p> <p>or fish kills. We were running down a long hill, dodging</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>trees and undergrowth, trying</p> <p>to find a ball before it found the river.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f7877200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Emily Dickinson letter to world" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f7877200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f7877200c-800wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Emily Dickinson letter to world" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>It’s Monday, and I’m scrolling down my iPhone, reading headlines as I work out at the Y.&#0160; The top stories are the sexy ones. The hot question of the morning: Will the FBI really investigate Brett? That’s the question we women are talking about as we sweat. <em>Is it any surprise that this country is run by a bunch of rich and connected good old boys?&#0160;</em>a red-haired woman asks. Another nods and says that we all know they drink beer. They like beer. Lots of beer. And do they black out? Yes. Do you? No. I know what would happen if I did, especially if I hung out with good ol’ boys.&#0160;</p> <p>We talk. We sweat. We laugh. And then, as so often happens these days, someone begins to describe her own experience of being sexually abused.&#0160; Afterwards I think of all the woman I have heard tell their stories lately, and of all the poems and stories I have read about sexual abuse.&#0160; I think of how Nancy Mitchell wrote in her poem,&#0160;“Why I’m Here,”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>We all here want, hope, to be fixed—</p> <p>but chances of a successful retrofit</p> <p>to the body depend</p> <p>on remembering—</p> <p>most cases are too far</p> <p>gone—the damage.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And then I think of other topics in the news these days that worry me. Other cases that I fear are “too far gone—the damage.” Topics that I rarely overhear anyone talk about at the Y or Starbucks or anywhere else. The environment is the top of my list. &#0160;I feel a real sense of urgency. Time is not on&#0160;our side. Today’s headline:&#0160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/climate/epa-trump-mercury-rule.html">The Trump Administration Prepares a Major Weakening of Mercury Emission Rules</a>.</p> <p>Climate change is the primary reason I worry about Kavanaugh (and probably anyone Trump will pick). I fear his anti-regulation stance, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/climate/kavanaugh-environment-supreme-court.html">the fact that he will further handicap the EPA, stripping its authority to enforce environmental regulations on constitutional grounds.</a></p> <p>But this is not something I talk about much. When I do, people stare at me blankly.</p> <p>Last summer I spoke with a board member for one of the nation’s major conservation groups about people’s lack of concern or awareness of environmental issues. I asked him if his group could think of a way to improve their messaging. &#0160;He answered that they have been trying. They have done research on the effectiveness of outreach and advertisements. Their conclusion: the ads are completely ineffective. He added that neither floods nor hurricanes&#0160;nor fires have raised people’s concerns. Doomsday predictions do nothing. &#0160;People tend to think that Doomsday will happen to others, not themselves.&#0160;</p> <p>Then he asked if I thought poets might have any insights into how we might tackle the problem. Do I have a favorite environmental poem? &#0160;I have been wondering about that ever since. I do love this poem by David Bottoms, which depicts the way we keep living our lives and ignoring the environment as best we can.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Foul Ball</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The river was off-limits, but occasionally a foul ball would fly</p> <p>back</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>over the press box, over the narrow drive</p> <p>and down the hill,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>and there we were—where what we called the ballpark rock</p> <p>jutted into the Etowah.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>On hot nights the stench would make us gag.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Two miles below the rendering plant</p> <p>and chicken parts still flooded up in the pool beyond the rock—</p> <p>clots of dirty feathers, feet,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>an occasional head with glazed eyes wide.</p> <p>We’d hold our noses and try to breathe through our mouths.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Once though, the smell was too much</p> <p>and we had to give it up.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Listen, it wasn’t what you think. It was only Little League,</p> <p>and they gave us free ice cream</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>for retrieving a foul. No, we weren’t overcome</p> <p>by thoughts of filth, disease,</p> <p>or fish kills. We were running down a long hill, dodging</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>trees and undergrowth, trying</p> <p>to find a ball before it found the river.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f7877200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Emily Dickinson letter to world" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f7877200c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f7877200c-800wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Emily Dickinson letter to world" /></a></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad36f1d75200c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-09-30T15:20:10Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f1d73200cA Day Saved by Poetry (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-09-30T15:20:10Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Ever since Trump was elected, I have been trying out variations on the serenity prayer—<em>God, grant me the serenity to accept that Trump is President and the wisdom not to go insane . . .&#0160; </em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">My prayers have not been answered.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I admit I am not usually a prayerful person, or even a faithful one, but extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. As my friend, the poet, January Gill O’Neil said, <em>Something dark has crawled from under a rock and we need it to crawl back under there.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I am pretty sure last week was a trial for all of us. And I’m already wondering if I will have the serenity to accept whatever happens next. Of all &#0160;qualities, serenity is one of the hardest for me to master. Even a snippet of a conversation can send me over the edge as it did last Friday when I was walking on the downtown mall in Charlottesville and overheard two men talking about Christine Blasey Ford. One was saying:<em>&#0160;I betcha she was just a pretty young thang looking for trouble</em>. <em>And they was just being boys. </em>The other agreed, <em>Women always blame men&#0160;who</em> <em>give ‘em what they ask for</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Yep, we women are to blame. Whatever sexual assaults we suffer, we cause them. Maybe we should bind or feet like the Chinese women once did so we can’t run freely. &#0160;Or cover our hair if not our entire bodies as women must in certain Muslim countries. Or how about female circumcision? Cut that female genitalia right off.&#0160;</span></p> <p>It didn&#39;t help that I also passed a man with a big sign saying, I STAND WITH BRETT.&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I was so angry, I ducked into The New Dominion Bookshop to gather my composure. I love bookshops, especially this one.&#0160; Charlottesville is so lucky to have it. Right when you walk in, you see the poetry section: a quiet place to recover, read a few poems, catch your breath. And the staff is so helpful. Shortly after I arrived, the lovely new events coordinator, Sarah Valencia, informed me that there was a poetry reading starting in just a few hours—two &#0160;fantastic poets, Erika Meitner and Emilia Phillips, were reading that night.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And what a terrific reading it was! Listening to Erika and Emilia, I felt as if my day had been saved by poetry. (And also, seeing Erika&#39;s T-shirt!) Both women are not just fantastic poets, they also know how to give a great reading.&#0160; I thought I&#39;d close with a poem from each.&#0160;</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3952e9f200d-pi" style="float: right;"> </a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f1c63200c-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Image1-2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f1c63200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f1c63200c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Image1-2" /></a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3952e9f200d-pi" style="float: right;"> </a><strong>Pica of Unsaid Things&#0160;</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">&#0160; by Emilia Philips from her new book,&#0160;<em>Empty Clip</em></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, I swallowed them.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Those bitter bolts rust in acidic</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">afterthought. This tetanus</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">of tautology turns my gut a copper</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">gangrene, a belfry</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">swallowed. Did you know passive</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">aggression is so soluble?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">A soapy mouth learns other ways</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">to speak: homonymic hymns</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">of<em>lye and lie. </em>The awful offal</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">becomes my loden, stinking</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">anger uncomplicates. But I gulped<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">the wrong way. I am a glutton<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">for bile. I make drinking <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b4eae3200b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="IMG_4328" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b4eae3200b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b4eae3200b-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="IMG_4328" /></a></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">songs of silence. Chugalug catgut.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">&amp; choke it back. Wolf</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">down this <em>I can’t , I won’t—</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">this <em>yes, yes, I mean, don’t.</em></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I<strong>’ll Remember You As You Were,</strong><br /></span></p> <p><strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Not As What You’ll Become&#0160;</span></strong></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">&#0160;&#0160; by Erika Meitner from her new book, <em>Holy Moly Carry Me</em></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are fearful, America,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I can tell you I am too. I worry</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">about my body—the way, lately,<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">it marches itself over curbs and<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">barriers, lingers in the streets <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3954566200d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Image2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3954566200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3954566200d-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Image2" /></a></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">as a form of resistance.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The streets belong to no one</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and everyone and are a guide<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">for motion, but we are so numerous</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">there is no pavement left on which to</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">release our bodies, like a river spilling</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">over a dam, so instead my body</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">thrums next to yours in place.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">When we stop traffic or hold</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">hands to form a human chain,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">we become a neon OPEN sign</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">singing into the night miles from</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">home when the only home left</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">is memory, your body, my body,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">our scars, the dark punctuated</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">with the dying light of stars.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Erika Meitner is the author of five books of poems, including&#0160;<em>Holy Moly Carry Me</em>&#0160;(BOA Editions, 2018),&#0160;<em>Copia&#0160;</em>(BOA Editions, 2014), and&#0160;<em>Ideal Cities&#0160;</em>(HarperCollins, 2010), which was a 2009 National Poetry Series winner. Her poems have been published in&#0160;<em>Best American Poetry</em>,&#0160;<em>The New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares</em>,&#0160;<em>The New Republic</em>,&#0160;<em>Virginia Quarterly Review</em>,&#0160;<em>The Southern Review</em>,&#0160;<em>Tin House</em>, and elsewhere. She&#0160;is currently an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, where she directs the MFA and undergraduate creative writing programs.</p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Emilia Phillips&#0160;is the author of three poetry collections from the University of Akron Press,&#0160;<em>Signaletics</em>&#0160;(2013) and&#0160;<em>Groundspeed</em>&#0160;(2016), and <em>Empty Clip </em>(2018), as well as three chapbooks--most recently&#0160;<em>Beneath the Ice Fish Like Souls Look Alike</em>&#0160;(Bull City Press, 2015). Her poems and lyric essays appear widely in literary publications including&#0160;<em>Agni</em>,&#0160;<em>Boston Review</em>,&#0160;<em>Ploughshares</em>,&#0160;<em>Poetry</em>, and elsewhere. She’s an assistant professor in the MFA Writing Program and the Department of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Ever since Trump was elected, I have been trying out variations on the serenity prayer—<em>God, grant me the serenity to accept that Trump is President and the wisdom not to go insane . . .&#0160; </em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">My prayers have not been answered.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I admit I am not usually a prayerful person, or even a faithful one, but extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. As my friend, the poet, January Gill O’Neil said, <em>Something dark has crawled from under a rock and we need it to crawl back under there.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I am pretty sure last week was a trial for all of us. And I’m already wondering if I will have the serenity to accept whatever happens next. Of all &#0160;qualities, serenity is one of the hardest for me to master. Even a snippet of a conversation can send me over the edge as it did last Friday when I was walking on the downtown mall in Charlottesville and overheard two men talking about Christine Blasey Ford. One was saying:<em>&#0160;I betcha she was just a pretty young thang looking for trouble</em>. <em>And they was just being boys. </em>The other agreed, <em>Women always blame men&#0160;who</em> <em>give ‘em what they ask for</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Yep, we women are to blame. Whatever sexual assaults we suffer, we cause them. Maybe we should bind or feet like the Chinese women once did so we can’t run freely. &#0160;Or cover our hair if not our entire bodies as women must in certain Muslim countries. Or how about female circumcision? Cut that female genitalia right off.&#0160;</span></p> <p>It didn&#39;t help that I also passed a man with a big sign saying, I STAND WITH BRETT.&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I was so angry, I ducked into The New Dominion Bookshop to gather my composure. I love bookshops, especially this one.&#0160; Charlottesville is so lucky to have it. Right when you walk in, you see the poetry section: a quiet place to recover, read a few poems, catch your breath. And the staff is so helpful. Shortly after I arrived, the lovely new events coordinator, Sarah Valencia, informed me that there was a poetry reading starting in just a few hours—two &#0160;fantastic poets, Erika Meitner and Emilia Phillips, were reading that night.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And what a terrific reading it was! Listening to Erika and Emilia, I felt as if my day had been saved by poetry. (And also, seeing Erika&#39;s T-shirt!) Both women are not just fantastic poets, they also know how to give a great reading.&#0160; I thought I&#39;d close with a poem from each.&#0160;</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3952e9f200d-pi" style="float: right;"> </a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f1c63200c-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Image1-2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f1c63200c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad36f1c63200c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Image1-2" /></a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3952e9f200d-pi" style="float: right;"> </a><strong>Pica of Unsaid Things&#0160;</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">&#0160; by Emilia Philips from her new book,&#0160;<em>Empty Clip</em></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, I swallowed them.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Those bitter bolts rust in acidic</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">afterthought. This tetanus</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">of tautology turns my gut a copper</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">gangrene, a belfry</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">swallowed. Did you know passive</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">aggression is so soluble?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">A soapy mouth learns other ways</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">to speak: homonymic hymns</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">of<em>lye and lie. </em>The awful offal</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">becomes my loden, stinking</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">anger uncomplicates. But I gulped<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">the wrong way. I am a glutton<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">for bile. I make drinking <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b4eae3200b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="IMG_4328" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b4eae3200b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3b4eae3200b-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="IMG_4328" /></a></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">songs of silence. Chugalug catgut.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">&amp; choke it back. Wolf</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">down this <em>I can’t , I won’t—</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">this <em>yes, yes, I mean, don’t.</em></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I<strong>’ll Remember You As You Were,</strong><br /></span></p> <p><strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Not As What You’ll Become&#0160;</span></strong></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">&#0160;&#0160; by Erika Meitner from her new book, <em>Holy Moly Carry Me</em></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are fearful, America,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I can tell you I am too. I worry</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">about my body—the way, lately,<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">it marches itself over curbs and<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">barriers, lingers in the streets <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3954566200d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Image2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3954566200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3954566200d-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Image2" /></a></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">as a form of resistance.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The streets belong to no one</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and everyone and are a guide<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">for motion, but we are so numerous</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">there is no pavement left on which to</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">release our bodies, like a river spilling</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">over a dam, so instead my body</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">thrums next to yours in place.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">When we stop traffic or hold</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">hands to form a human chain,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">we become a neon OPEN sign</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">singing into the night miles from</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">home when the only home left</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">is memory, your body, my body,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">our scars, the dark punctuated</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">with the dying light of stars.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Erika Meitner is the author of five books of poems, including&#0160;<em>Holy Moly Carry Me</em>&#0160;(BOA Editions, 2018),&#0160;<em>Copia&#0160;</em>(BOA Editions, 2014), and&#0160;<em>Ideal Cities&#0160;</em>(HarperCollins, 2010), which was a 2009 National Poetry Series winner. Her poems have been published in&#0160;<em>Best American Poetry</em>,&#0160;<em>The New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares</em>,&#0160;<em>The New Republic</em>,&#0160;<em>Virginia Quarterly Review</em>,&#0160;<em>The Southern Review</em>,&#0160;<em>Tin House</em>, and elsewhere. She&#0160;is currently an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, where she directs the MFA and undergraduate creative writing programs.</p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Emilia Phillips&#0160;is the author of three poetry collections from the University of Akron Press,&#0160;<em>Signaletics</em>&#0160;(2013) and&#0160;<em>Groundspeed</em>&#0160;(2016), and <em>Empty Clip </em>(2018), as well as three chapbooks--most recently&#0160;<em>Beneath the Ice Fish Like Souls Look Alike</em>&#0160;(Bull City Press, 2015). Her poems and lyric essays appear widely in literary publications including&#0160;<em>Agni</em>,&#0160;<em>Boston Review</em>,&#0160;<em>Ploughshares</em>,&#0160;<em>Poetry</em>, and elsewhere. She’s an assistant professor in the MFA Writing Program and the Department of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.&#0160;</span></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad38541bc200d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-07-31T12:54:57Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad38541b9200dAn Interview with Sally Bliumis-Dunn (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-07-31T12:54:57Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>NA: </strong>I wanted to start by asking you to post the title poem and say a few words about it.<strong>&#0160;</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>SBD:</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>Echolocation</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">The whales can’t hear each other calling&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">in the noise-cluttered sea: they beach themselves.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">I saw one once—heaved onto the sand with kelp</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">stuck to its blue-gray skin.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">Heavy and immobile,</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">it lay like a great sadness.&#0160;&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">And it was hard to breathe with all the stink.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">Its elliptical black eyes had stilled, were mostly dry,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">and barnacles clustered on its back&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">like tiny brown volcanoes.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">Imagining the other whales, their roving weight,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">their blue-black webbing of the deep,&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">I stopped knowing how to measure my own grief.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">And this one, large and dead on the sand,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">with its unimaginable five-hundred-pound heart.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">“Echolocation”&#0160;became the title poem very early on in the book’s eight-year evolution. Echolocation is, of course, the way whales locate themselves through the sounds that they bounce off the ocean floor, corals, other sea creatures. A poet too locates her/himself through a particularizing of sound. If the poem reaches a reader, then the speaker and the reader are located for each other precisely. I guess that is a goal anyway.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>NA: </strong>I just realized that like me, you spend a lot of time in Maine, and I was wondering what, if any, influence the beautiful Maine coastline might have on your poetry?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>SBD: </strong>The room where I write looks out on a tidal reach that is always changing as the waters rise and fall. The shape and speed of the small waves is in constant transformation as is the water’s color in relation to the sky—emerald green, sage, brown, robin’s egg blue. A friend once called the view from our windows, water television. I find looking at Long Reach, which is the name of this body of water, creates a mental state quiet enough for my mind to slow and gather words;&#0160;the water’s motion too seems to prevent a kind of stale stasis. At eventide, the water is still, but this too has its own reflective way of calling up poems.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">My mother died in the Spring of 2017 and during the summer following, I wrote many of the more elegiac poems from this room in Maine. The spot where we live in Harpswell is also very quiet, but for the wind. The wind through the oaks and pines is affecting as well, invisible but for when it moves the trees, the water.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>NA: </strong>I especially love the way your poems address the mother/daughter relationship in particular as well as the spoken and unspoken questions that arise between loved ones. Your mother&#39;s discomfort in talking about sexuality is an example. It mirrors the tension, present in so many of your poems--between what can and cannot be said—or known. I wondered if you could say a few words about that tension?&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>SBD: </strong>I think tension, opposites pulling on each other, creates a mirror of how our minds often work, all the ambivalence we carry, how two or three or four opposing feelings can all be true.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">I am very interested in looking at my subjects closely while knowing there is a point at which I can’t perceive further. The closer I get to that point, the happier I am with the poem. I think this is another reason why “Echolocation” became the title poem, the lines, “I stopped knowing&#0160;&#0160;how to measure my own grief./ And this one, large and dead on the sand, with its unimaginable five-hundred pound heart.”&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">As far as my mom, there were many tensions and joys in our relationship. As she grew more frail, I found that writing about her allowed me to understand and appreciate more fully what there was between us. In the poem, “Diminution,” I was able to discover a loving impulse behind my mother’s overuse of cliché, which isn’t to say that I did not find them confining and irritating, just that writing the poem allowed&#0160;me to experience their inadvertent humor and her love.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">I think writing the poems that chronicled her physical and mental deterioration made losing her more bearable by attempting to transform the loss into art. Octavio Paz said something about needing to write in order to transform pain, that joy does not require transformation and is therefore more difficult to tether.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>NA: </strong>I am just so in love with this book, I don’t want to say or even ask. It is so achingly beautiful. I wondered if you could just talk a little more about the backdrop of the book, the occasions that inspired this particular collection poems.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>SBD:&#0160;</strong>Nin, I think so highly of you and your work… I am thrilled that you like ECHOLOCATION and have spent so much time with it! Thank you!</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">Many of the poems concern the natural world. I am not a religious person at all, but I do find that nature holds answers for me and soothes. Just by looking closely at an animal or plant something shifts and a weight is lifted. I don’t really know how to explain it any further.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">The first poem I ever wrote was about my father’s death when I was ten or so. His death long ago but more my mother’s recent death figure prominently in ECHOLOCATION. The book is dedicated to her. In a way, the book is a chronicle of losses and the poems are an attempt to wrap words around them, make these losses communicable to others.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3854126200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_4285" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3854126200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3854126200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_4285" /></a>Sally Bliumis-Dunn teaches Modern Poetry at Manhattanville College and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Her poems appeared in&#0160;<em>New Ohio Review, The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, PLUME, Poetry London,&#0160;</em>the NYT, PBS NewsHour,&#0160;<em>upstreet, The Writer’s Almanac</em>, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day,&#0160;and Ted Kooser’s&#0160; column, among others. In 2002, she was a finalist for the&#0160;<em>Nimrod</em>/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize. Her two books,&#0160;<em>Talking Underwater</em>&#0160;and<em>&#0160;Second Skin</em>&#0160;were published by Wind Publications in 2007 and 2010.&#0160;<em>Galapagos Poems</em>&#0160;was published by Kattywompus Press in 2016. Her third full-length collection,&#0160;<em>Echolocation</em>, was published by Plume editions Madhat Press in March of 2018.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>NA: </strong>I wanted to start by asking you to post the title poem and say a few words about it.<strong>&#0160;</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>SBD:</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>Echolocation</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">The whales can’t hear each other calling&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">in the noise-cluttered sea: they beach themselves.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">I saw one once—heaved onto the sand with kelp</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">stuck to its blue-gray skin.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">Heavy and immobile,</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">it lay like a great sadness.&#0160;&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">And it was hard to breathe with all the stink.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">Its elliptical black eyes had stilled, were mostly dry,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">and barnacles clustered on its back&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">like tiny brown volcanoes.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">Imagining the other whales, their roving weight,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">their blue-black webbing of the deep,&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">I stopped knowing how to measure my own grief.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">And this one, large and dead on the sand,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">with its unimaginable five-hundred-pound heart.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">“Echolocation”&#0160;became the title poem very early on in the book’s eight-year evolution. Echolocation is, of course, the way whales locate themselves through the sounds that they bounce off the ocean floor, corals, other sea creatures. A poet too locates her/himself through a particularizing of sound. If the poem reaches a reader, then the speaker and the reader are located for each other precisely. I guess that is a goal anyway.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>NA: </strong>I just realized that like me, you spend a lot of time in Maine, and I was wondering what, if any, influence the beautiful Maine coastline might have on your poetry?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>SBD: </strong>The room where I write looks out on a tidal reach that is always changing as the waters rise and fall. The shape and speed of the small waves is in constant transformation as is the water’s color in relation to the sky—emerald green, sage, brown, robin’s egg blue. A friend once called the view from our windows, water television. I find looking at Long Reach, which is the name of this body of water, creates a mental state quiet enough for my mind to slow and gather words;&#0160;the water’s motion too seems to prevent a kind of stale stasis. At eventide, the water is still, but this too has its own reflective way of calling up poems.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">My mother died in the Spring of 2017 and during the summer following, I wrote many of the more elegiac poems from this room in Maine. The spot where we live in Harpswell is also very quiet, but for the wind. The wind through the oaks and pines is affecting as well, invisible but for when it moves the trees, the water.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>NA: </strong>I especially love the way your poems address the mother/daughter relationship in particular as well as the spoken and unspoken questions that arise between loved ones. Your mother&#39;s discomfort in talking about sexuality is an example. It mirrors the tension, present in so many of your poems--between what can and cannot be said—or known. I wondered if you could say a few words about that tension?&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>SBD: </strong>I think tension, opposites pulling on each other, creates a mirror of how our minds often work, all the ambivalence we carry, how two or three or four opposing feelings can all be true.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">I am very interested in looking at my subjects closely while knowing there is a point at which I can’t perceive further. The closer I get to that point, the happier I am with the poem. I think this is another reason why “Echolocation” became the title poem, the lines, “I stopped knowing&#0160;&#0160;how to measure my own grief./ And this one, large and dead on the sand, with its unimaginable five-hundred pound heart.”&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">As far as my mom, there were many tensions and joys in our relationship. As she grew more frail, I found that writing about her allowed me to understand and appreciate more fully what there was between us. In the poem, “Diminution,” I was able to discover a loving impulse behind my mother’s overuse of cliché, which isn’t to say that I did not find them confining and irritating, just that writing the poem allowed&#0160;me to experience their inadvertent humor and her love.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">I think writing the poems that chronicled her physical and mental deterioration made losing her more bearable by attempting to transform the loss into art. Octavio Paz said something about needing to write in order to transform pain, that joy does not require transformation and is therefore more difficult to tether.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>NA: </strong>I am just so in love with this book, I don’t want to say or even ask. It is so achingly beautiful. I wondered if you could just talk a little more about the backdrop of the book, the occasions that inspired this particular collection poems.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"><strong>SBD:&#0160;</strong>Nin, I think so highly of you and your work… I am thrilled that you like ECHOLOCATION and have spent so much time with it! Thank you!</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">Many of the poems concern the natural world. I am not a religious person at all, but I do find that nature holds answers for me and soothes. Just by looking closely at an animal or plant something shifts and a weight is lifted. I don’t really know how to explain it any further.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;">The first poem I ever wrote was about my father’s death when I was ten or so. His death long ago but more my mother’s recent death figure prominently in ECHOLOCATION. The book is dedicated to her. In a way, the book is a chronicle of losses and the poems are an attempt to wrap words around them, make these losses communicable to others.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times;"> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3854126200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_4285" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3854126200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3854126200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_4285" /></a>Sally Bliumis-Dunn teaches Modern Poetry at Manhattanville College and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Her poems appeared in&#0160;<em>New Ohio Review, The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, PLUME, Poetry London,&#0160;</em>the NYT, PBS NewsHour,&#0160;<em>upstreet, The Writer’s Almanac</em>, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day,&#0160;and Ted Kooser’s&#0160; column, among others. In 2002, she was a finalist for the&#0160;<em>Nimrod</em>/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize. Her two books,&#0160;<em>Talking Underwater</em>&#0160;and<em>&#0160;Second Skin</em>&#0160;were published by Wind Publications in 2007 and 2010.&#0160;<em>Galapagos Poems</em>&#0160;was published by Kattywompus Press in 2016. Her third full-length collection,&#0160;<em>Echolocation</em>, was published by Plume editions Madhat Press in March of 2018.</span></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad3a3b4f5200b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-07-25T18:26:20Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a3b4f3200bComparing Poets to Dogs (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-07-25T18:26:20Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>Last week I mentioned that I often compare poets to dogs. I received a few emails asking me to elaborate. So I want to ask, <em>Am I the only one who thinks this way? Should I teach a seminar on helping poets find their inner dog?</em> &#0160;There are, after all, just so many similarities between poets and dogs.</p> <p><br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a3b413200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Dog inner poet" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a3b413200b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a3b413200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Dog inner poet" /></a>For starters, everyone is familiar with those social media fiends, yappy little dogs that want to become everyone’s FRIEND and that LIKE everything. And the equally enthusiastic large dogs that stick their noses in everyone’s crotch. (I’m not talking about the Me Too movement here. Crotch-sniffers come in both genders.) And the German Shepherds that, given the opportunity, bite fellow poets—I remember one such poet telling me he really enjoyed writing negative reviews.&#0160; In contrast are the Cocker Spaniels, great family dogs—Ted Kooser, Stanley Kunitz, and Billy Collins are prime examples. &#0160;It’s always safe to take a Cocker Spaniel poem to a yoga class or family gathering—no need to worry that they will wander into alarming territories. Unlike the Springer Spaniels that resemble Cockers but often roam and need obedience classes.</p> <p>One of the more appealing breeds to my mind are the majestic Bernese Mountain Dogs that make me wish I lived in the Alps, or at least the Appalachians, or anywhere far away from po-biz and other such nonsense. I don’t think Sydney Lea or John Lane would mind being compared to a Bernese. And there are the tireless Border Collies whose work is beautiful to witness and who can herd other poets as if they were sheep. For this reason, they are known to organize events and conferences like the God-awful AWP. Examples: Kelli Russell Agodon, Grace Cavaleiri, Didi Menendez, and January Gil O’Neil. &#0160;There are also the Papillons, or dogs from another planet—their large ears are clearly designed for hearing signals from outer space. Poets like Claire Bateman, Stephanie Strickland, Shivani Mehta, Charles Simic, and Harvey Hix might be Papillons. &#0160;And the Jack Russells. I always fall in love with Jack Russells, those clever, surprising, and witty poets who are great entertainers and make me laugh. You never know what they are going to get into next. Poets like Jennifer Knox, Denise Duhamel, Amy Gerstler, James Tate, Nicole Santalucia, David Lehman, and Jan Beattie qualify as Jack Russells.&#0160; I would be negligent if I didn’t mention the ever-present urban poodles, all dolled up, as if by Glamor Shots. Poodle-poets tend to be smart, or at least a lot smarter than they look, and they often win prizes. &#0160;Also popular today are designer breeds like the Golden Doodle that blends the best aspects of poodles with retrievers. I love anything mixed with a retriever. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad383ec2f200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Echolocation" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad383ec2f200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad383ec2f200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Echolocation" /></a>I adore retrievers. Just saying the word, I can almost see one in the meadow, one leg raised, nose to the air, every fiber of her being alert to any scent or sound or movement in the water or wind. In fact, I just read the book,&#0160;<em>Echolocation,&#0160;</em>by the poet, Sally Bliumis-Dunn, and I thought, <em>What a sensitive and magical read!&#0160;</em>I also thought, <em>What a retriever!&#0160;</em>In her poems, full of grief and beauty, the internal world is in perfect sync with the natural world.&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>I could go on and on about dogs, but instead, I will post the cover of this lovely book and close with two poems by Sally Bliumis-Dunn.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Ode to Autumn</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>So many colors abandon the earth,</p> <p>and go skyward to the trees</p> <p>like origami birds.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>scarlet, orange, creased</p> <p>and folded into the mind</p> <p>where these paper birds come alive,</p> <p>the trees quiver a little—</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>this is where I can</p> <p>still see you</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>in these gray branches</p> <p>with brightly colored</p> <p>birds that are not birds—envision you</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>still darning</p> <p>the heels of Jimmy’s socks</p> <p>those evenings after school</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>at the kitchen table when</p> <p>you’d run your finger down our list—</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>not here in the duller green</p> <p>where the last of the pink roses</p> <p>are browning on the vine,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>and along the fence,</p> <p>your favorite lilies, wilted,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>and everywhere</p> <p>the hungry bees.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Pond</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Metallic rain</p> <p>cuts into</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The pond’s bank,</p> <p>each day a little deeper.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The clear</p> <p>watery blades.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Each hour</p> <p>widening cracks,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Loosened rocks</p> <p>tumble.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>This is where</p> <p>sadness goes.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>This is how</p> <p>it tunnels the body.</p> <p>Last week I mentioned that I often compare poets to dogs. I received a few emails asking me to elaborate. So I want to ask, <em>Am I the only one who thinks this way? Should I teach a seminar on helping poets find their inner dog?</em> &#0160;There are, after all, just so many similarities between poets and dogs.</p> <p><br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a3b413200b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Dog inner poet" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a3b413200b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3a3b413200b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Dog inner poet" /></a>For starters, everyone is familiar with those social media fiends, yappy little dogs that want to become everyone’s FRIEND and that LIKE everything. And the equally enthusiastic large dogs that stick their noses in everyone’s crotch. (I’m not talking about the Me Too movement here. Crotch-sniffers come in both genders.) And the German Shepherds that, given the opportunity, bite fellow poets—I remember one such poet telling me he really enjoyed writing negative reviews.&#0160; In contrast are the Cocker Spaniels, great family dogs—Ted Kooser, Stanley Kunitz, and Billy Collins are prime examples. &#0160;It’s always safe to take a Cocker Spaniel poem to a yoga class or family gathering—no need to worry that they will wander into alarming territories. Unlike the Springer Spaniels that resemble Cockers but often roam and need obedience classes.</p> <p>One of the more appealing breeds to my mind are the majestic Bernese Mountain Dogs that make me wish I lived in the Alps, or at least the Appalachians, or anywhere far away from po-biz and other such nonsense. I don’t think Sydney Lea or John Lane would mind being compared to a Bernese. And there are the tireless Border Collies whose work is beautiful to witness and who can herd other poets as if they were sheep. For this reason, they are known to organize events and conferences like the God-awful AWP. Examples: Kelli Russell Agodon, Grace Cavaleiri, Didi Menendez, and January Gil O’Neil. &#0160;There are also the Papillons, or dogs from another planet—their large ears are clearly designed for hearing signals from outer space. Poets like Claire Bateman, Stephanie Strickland, Shivani Mehta, Charles Simic, and Harvey Hix might be Papillons. &#0160;And the Jack Russells. I always fall in love with Jack Russells, those clever, surprising, and witty poets who are great entertainers and make me laugh. You never know what they are going to get into next. Poets like Jennifer Knox, Denise Duhamel, Amy Gerstler, James Tate, Nicole Santalucia, David Lehman, and Jan Beattie qualify as Jack Russells.&#0160; I would be negligent if I didn’t mention the ever-present urban poodles, all dolled up, as if by Glamor Shots. Poodle-poets tend to be smart, or at least a lot smarter than they look, and they often win prizes. &#0160;Also popular today are designer breeds like the Golden Doodle that blends the best aspects of poodles with retrievers. I love anything mixed with a retriever. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad383ec2f200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Echolocation" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad383ec2f200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad383ec2f200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Echolocation" /></a>I adore retrievers. Just saying the word, I can almost see one in the meadow, one leg raised, nose to the air, every fiber of her being alert to any scent or sound or movement in the water or wind. In fact, I just read the book,&#0160;<em>Echolocation,&#0160;</em>by the poet, Sally Bliumis-Dunn, and I thought, <em>What a sensitive and magical read!&#0160;</em>I also thought, <em>What a retriever!&#0160;</em>In her poems, full of grief and beauty, the internal world is in perfect sync with the natural world.&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>I could go on and on about dogs, but instead, I will post the cover of this lovely book and close with two poems by Sally Bliumis-Dunn.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Ode to Autumn</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>So many colors abandon the earth,</p> <p>and go skyward to the trees</p> <p>like origami birds.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>scarlet, orange, creased</p> <p>and folded into the mind</p> <p>where these paper birds come alive,</p> <p>the trees quiver a little—</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>this is where I can</p> <p>still see you</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>in these gray branches</p> <p>with brightly colored</p> <p>birds that are not birds—envision you</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>still darning</p> <p>the heels of Jimmy’s socks</p> <p>those evenings after school</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>at the kitchen table when</p> <p>you’d run your finger down our list—</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>not here in the duller green</p> <p>where the last of the pink roses</p> <p>are browning on the vine,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>and along the fence,</p> <p>your favorite lilies, wilted,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>and everywhere</p> <p>the hungry bees.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Pond</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Metallic rain</p> <p>cuts into</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The pond’s bank,</p> <p>each day a little deeper.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The clear</p> <p>watery blades.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Each hour</p> <p>widening cracks,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Loosened rocks</p> <p>tumble.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>This is where</p> <p>sadness goes.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>This is how</p> <p>it tunnels the body.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad35b77f2200c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-07-16T16:21:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad35b77f0200cWill You Write a Blurb for Me? What’s Your Book About? Why Do You Write Poetry? (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-07-16T16:21:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">I hate it when people ask me questions like that.&#0160; These days I especially hate it when people ask me for a blurb. People I’ve never met, whose work I don’t know. I’ve been asked a lot lately.&#0160; I know—it’s all part of po-biz, but I’m tired, really tired, so I’m taking a much-needed blurb-vacation. I also hate it when folks ask me, in an effort to be polite, what my books are about, as if I should be able to give my books an elevator pitch. Or why I write. Or what poetry is for . . .&#0160;</p> <p class="Body"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3818d0c200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Boston terrier8" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3818d0c200d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3818d0c200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Boston terrier8" /></a><br /> Maybe I should have started this blog-post by saying I am not in a good mood. Last week my beloved Boston terrier, Miss Froda, (depicted to the left in this old comic of mine) died, and I’m feeling bereft. Lost. Inconsolable. A part of my soul has departed. I am quite sure there has never been a dog like her. She was everything: free verse, prose, short fiction, a novel.&#0160; Without her I feel as if every day is an endless and unpunctuated page. No joyous reason to wake up, no urgent reason to go outside several times a day—see the clouds, the sky, the sun, no reason to stop writing at 3:00 PM for her dinner—always topped with a sliver of salmon. Salmon, the only poetry she really understood. Disruptive and beguiling, she was my solace, my soul mate, my confidante, my punch line. Sounds like I am writing a blurb for my dog, doesn’t it?&#0160; But she was the best dog ever.&#0160; My vet agreed but then she added, <em>Aren’t all our dogs the best?</em></p> <p class="Body"><em>Nope,</em>I said.&#0160; Just like all poets aren’t the best, even if every blurb seems to say they are. What is it with blurbs?&#0160; (Before writing a blurb, I always try to decide what kind of dog this poet resembles.) I told the vet about my first dog, Luger, a Rottweiler, who loved only me. Everyone one else he wanted to eat. He would look up at me, clearly begging, <em>May I bite him? Oh please? Just a nip? </em>Back then I was a runner, and I spent a lot of time jogging on deserted country roads. Having a guard dog had its advantages. But I always worried.&#0160; To be fair, Luger only bit Mormons and Jehovah&#39;s Witnesses and one vacuum cleaner salesman.&#0160; (This was back in the day when people sold vacuums door-to-door—they’d dump shit on your carpet and then want you to buy a vacuum to clean it up.) My mother said Luger had good taste—I’m not sure exactly what she meant, but she always sided with the dog. Her logic went something like—if I were a dog, I’d want to bite him, too. My dog, Luger, sold her on the breed.</p> <p class="Body">My vet laughed and confessed that there are days she feels just like Luger.&#0160; <em>Me, too,</em>I said. (That’s when I knew—this lady is the vet for me. Or should I say, for my next dog.)&#0160; I’ve been feeling like taking a bite out of everyone lately. And not just the poets who ask for a blurb. Don’t even get me started on the news. After listening to NPR, I need a muzzle.</p> <p class="Body">That’s when I turn to poetry. Even when poetry is dark, I feel oddly uplifted after reading it. Maybe because it represents truth, a level of depth, heart, intimacy and intelligence missing from the news.&#0160; It places a value on the human soul and renews my faith in humanity, what little faith I have—which brings me to Nancy Mitchell again. Because last week I mentioned Nancy Mitchell’s new collection, <em>The Out-of-Body-Shop</em>, and I don’t think I did her justice. Her poetry is powerful, and I mean powerfully beautiful, elegant, reflective, insightful. Her poems are often painful and moving like this one about sexual abuse:</p> <p class="Body"><em>&#0160;</em></p> <p class="Body">Why I’m Here</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">I have no clue—it was weird, yes</p> <p class="Body">but I would say <em><span lang="IT">molested&#0160;</span></em>but</p> <p class="Body">not <em>abused&#0160;</em>like the one</p> <p class="Body">here who was raped</p> <p class="Body">repeatedly and caged or that one</p> <p class="Body">chained four hundred days to a radiator . . .</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">But, the technicians insist (in layman’s</p> <p class="Body">terms) there is always the initial incident, after</p> <p class="Body">which the connection to the body</p> <p class="Body">is intrinsically damaged—think</p> <p class="Body">electric cord, think frayed—</p> <p class="Body">it’s the culmination of subsequent,</p> <p class="Body">less significant incidents that cause</p> <p class="Body">the final, often irreparable, split.</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">We all here want, hope, to be fixed—</p> <p class="Body">but chances of a successful retrofit</p> <p class="Body">to the body depend</p> <p class="Body">on remembering—</p> <p class="Body">most cases are too far</p> <p class="Body">gone—the damage.</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">Nancy Mitchell is also a brilliant essayist, so I thought I’d ask her (forgive me, Nancy) some of the very questions I dislike answering.&#0160; One of those wide-open questions like . . .</p> <p class="Body">Tell me about this book? What is the Out-of-Body Shop?</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">Thank you, Nin for saying such kind things about my poems, and for my asking me about my new book. Basically, The Out-of-Body Shop is a metaphor for the psychological/spirtual space a psyche/soul ends up, the connective cord to the body, damaged by a primal trauma, then frayed from successive shocks— the loss of loved ones by death or abandonment or to geography and time and the distracting minutiae of the news, social media, etc. of life— finally split. In this shop, reconnection is possible if the splintered parts of the psyche can be recovered or reintegrated. The book is about the recovery of these parts—the psyches/speakers in these poems sift memories, scratch through the veneer of appearances and relentlessly stalk ghosts until they surrender the part they hold hostage. With these recovered fragments the arduous task of retrofitting the psyche to the body begins.</p> <p class="Body">You know Nin, I think we all end up in the Out of Body Shop from time to time as a result of varying degrees of trauma via loss-as you say of the loss of your beloved Miss Froda “A part of my soul has departed.” The life routines, and their resonant, tactile sensory details we share with our departed-from-us beloveds—and “beloveds” can be a place we’ve lived for years, a job we’ve loved and lost, etc.—are what tether us to this sweet old world, and without them we’re like a helium balloon cut loose, the pleasures of our life receding. I think we suffer more subtle losses on a daily basis as our “social media” presence, edited of every idiosyncratic, real sensory detail, becomes more real than who we are. . . the wizard of Oz effect. I explore this kind of loss in this new book, particularly in the poem&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">“Friends Here”</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">All we are is a now</p> <p class="Body">Is floating text</p> <p class="Body">Next to a thumbnail</p> <p class="Body">Of the body</p> <p class="Body">We left. We reminisce</p> <p class="Body">On all the ways a warm</p> <p class="Body">Body feels against</p> <p class="Body">Another body, how</p> <p class="Body">Voices sound</p> <p class="Body">So differently in fog</p> <p class="Body">Than in the dark</p> <p class="Body">And day and everything</p> <p class="Body">The smell of rain</p> <p class="Body">Changes. We try</p> <p class="Body">Not to complain</p> <p class="Body">About the constant ache</p> <p class="Body">And to be grateful:</p> <p class="Body">We like each other;</p> <p class="Body">We have emojis.</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">So, it’s a place of regrouping, remembering, retrofitting, where, with the help of some friendly “technicians” we are put back together, but with fault lines.</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad38180bd200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Image1" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad38180bd200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad38180bd200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Image1" /></a></p> <p class="Default">Nancy Mitchell is the author of three volumes of poetry, <em>The Near Surround&#0160;</em>(Four Way Books, 2002,) <em><span lang="NL">Grief Hut</span></em><em>&#0160;</em>(Cervena Barva Press, 2009) and<em>The Out-of-Body Shop</em>(<span lang="FR">Plume Editions</span>, 2018.) A 2012 Pushcart Prize winner, she teaches at Salisbury University in Maryland and serves as Associate Editor of Special Features for&#0160;<em>Plume. </em>She can be reached at nancymitchellpoet@gmail.com</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p>Nin Andrews&#39; most recent collection, <em>Miss August</em>, was published by CavanKerry in 2017. You can hear her interview with Grace Cavaleiri and see a picture of her with her Boston Terrier <a href="http://www.gracecavalieri.com/poetLaureates/featuredpoet_ninandrews.html">here</a>.&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">I hate it when people ask me questions like that.&#0160; These days I especially hate it when people ask me for a blurb. People I’ve never met, whose work I don’t know. I’ve been asked a lot lately.&#0160; I know—it’s all part of po-biz, but I’m tired, really tired, so I’m taking a much-needed blurb-vacation. I also hate it when folks ask me, in an effort to be polite, what my books are about, as if I should be able to give my books an elevator pitch. Or why I write. Or what poetry is for . . .&#0160;</p> <p class="Body"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3818d0c200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Boston terrier8" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3818d0c200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad3818d0c200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Boston terrier8" /></a><br /> Maybe I should have started this blog-post by saying I am not in a good mood. Last week my beloved Boston terrier, Miss Froda, (depicted to the left in this old comic of mine) died, and I’m feeling bereft. Lost. Inconsolable. A part of my soul has departed. I am quite sure there has never been a dog like her. She was everything: free verse, prose, short fiction, a novel.&#0160; Without her I feel as if every day is an endless and unpunctuated page. No joyous reason to wake up, no urgent reason to go outside several times a day—see the clouds, the sky, the sun, no reason to stop writing at 3:00 PM for her dinner—always topped with a sliver of salmon. Salmon, the only poetry she really understood. Disruptive and beguiling, she was my solace, my soul mate, my confidante, my punch line. Sounds like I am writing a blurb for my dog, doesn’t it?&#0160; But she was the best dog ever.&#0160; My vet agreed but then she added, <em>Aren’t all our dogs the best?</em></p> <p class="Body"><em>Nope,</em>I said.&#0160; Just like all poets aren’t the best, even if every blurb seems to say they are. What is it with blurbs?&#0160; (Before writing a blurb, I always try to decide what kind of dog this poet resembles.) I told the vet about my first dog, Luger, a Rottweiler, who loved only me. Everyone one else he wanted to eat. He would look up at me, clearly begging, <em>May I bite him? Oh please? Just a nip? </em>Back then I was a runner, and I spent a lot of time jogging on deserted country roads. Having a guard dog had its advantages. But I always worried.&#0160; To be fair, Luger only bit Mormons and Jehovah&#39;s Witnesses and one vacuum cleaner salesman.&#0160; (This was back in the day when people sold vacuums door-to-door—they’d dump shit on your carpet and then want you to buy a vacuum to clean it up.) My mother said Luger had good taste—I’m not sure exactly what she meant, but she always sided with the dog. Her logic went something like—if I were a dog, I’d want to bite him, too. My dog, Luger, sold her on the breed.</p> <p class="Body">My vet laughed and confessed that there are days she feels just like Luger.&#0160; <em>Me, too,</em>I said. (That’s when I knew—this lady is the vet for me. Or should I say, for my next dog.)&#0160; I’ve been feeling like taking a bite out of everyone lately. And not just the poets who ask for a blurb. Don’t even get me started on the news. After listening to NPR, I need a muzzle.</p> <p class="Body">That’s when I turn to poetry. Even when poetry is dark, I feel oddly uplifted after reading it. Maybe because it represents truth, a level of depth, heart, intimacy and intelligence missing from the news.&#0160; It places a value on the human soul and renews my faith in humanity, what little faith I have—which brings me to Nancy Mitchell again. Because last week I mentioned Nancy Mitchell’s new collection, <em>The Out-of-Body-Shop</em>, and I don’t think I did her justice. Her poetry is powerful, and I mean powerfully beautiful, elegant, reflective, insightful. Her poems are often painful and moving like this one about sexual abuse:</p> <p class="Body"><em>&#0160;</em></p> <p class="Body">Why I’m Here</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">I have no clue—it was weird, yes</p> <p class="Body">but I would say <em><span lang="IT">molested&#0160;</span></em>but</p> <p class="Body">not <em>abused&#0160;</em>like the one</p> <p class="Body">here who was raped</p> <p class="Body">repeatedly and caged or that one</p> <p class="Body">chained four hundred days to a radiator . . .</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">But, the technicians insist (in layman’s</p> <p class="Body">terms) there is always the initial incident, after</p> <p class="Body">which the connection to the body</p> <p class="Body">is intrinsically damaged—think</p> <p class="Body">electric cord, think frayed—</p> <p class="Body">it’s the culmination of subsequent,</p> <p class="Body">less significant incidents that cause</p> <p class="Body">the final, often irreparable, split.</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">We all here want, hope, to be fixed—</p> <p class="Body">but chances of a successful retrofit</p> <p class="Body">to the body depend</p> <p class="Body">on remembering—</p> <p class="Body">most cases are too far</p> <p class="Body">gone—the damage.</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">Nancy Mitchell is also a brilliant essayist, so I thought I’d ask her (forgive me, Nancy) some of the very questions I dislike answering.&#0160; One of those wide-open questions like . . .</p> <p class="Body">Tell me about this book? What is the Out-of-Body Shop?</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">Thank you, Nin for saying such kind things about my poems, and for my asking me about my new book. Basically, The Out-of-Body Shop is a metaphor for the psychological/spirtual space a psyche/soul ends up, the connective cord to the body, damaged by a primal trauma, then frayed from successive shocks— the loss of loved ones by death or abandonment or to geography and time and the distracting minutiae of the news, social media, etc. of life— finally split. In this shop, reconnection is possible if the splintered parts of the psyche can be recovered or reintegrated. The book is about the recovery of these parts—the psyches/speakers in these poems sift memories, scratch through the veneer of appearances and relentlessly stalk ghosts until they surrender the part they hold hostage. With these recovered fragments the arduous task of retrofitting the psyche to the body begins.</p> <p class="Body">You know Nin, I think we all end up in the Out of Body Shop from time to time as a result of varying degrees of trauma via loss-as you say of the loss of your beloved Miss Froda “A part of my soul has departed.” The life routines, and their resonant, tactile sensory details we share with our departed-from-us beloveds—and “beloveds” can be a place we’ve lived for years, a job we’ve loved and lost, etc.—are what tether us to this sweet old world, and without them we’re like a helium balloon cut loose, the pleasures of our life receding. I think we suffer more subtle losses on a daily basis as our “social media” presence, edited of every idiosyncratic, real sensory detail, becomes more real than who we are. . . the wizard of Oz effect. I explore this kind of loss in this new book, particularly in the poem&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">“Friends Here”</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">All we are is a now</p> <p class="Body">Is floating text</p> <p class="Body">Next to a thumbnail</p> <p class="Body">Of the body</p> <p class="Body">We left. We reminisce</p> <p class="Body">On all the ways a warm</p> <p class="Body">Body feels against</p> <p class="Body">Another body, how</p> <p class="Body">Voices sound</p> <p class="Body">So differently in fog</p> <p class="Body">Than in the dark</p> <p class="Body">And day and everything</p> <p class="Body">The smell of rain</p> <p class="Body">Changes. We try</p> <p class="Body">Not to complain</p> <p class="Body">About the constant ache</p> <p class="Body">And to be grateful:</p> <p class="Body">We like each other;</p> <p class="Body">We have emojis.</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body">So, it’s a place of regrouping, remembering, retrofitting, where, with the help of some friendly “technicians” we are put back together, but with fault lines.</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p class="Body"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad38180bd200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Image1" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad38180bd200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad38180bd200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Image1" /></a></p> <p class="Default">Nancy Mitchell is the author of three volumes of poetry, <em>The Near Surround&#0160;</em>(Four Way Books, 2002,) <em><span lang="NL">Grief Hut</span></em><em>&#0160;</em>(Cervena Barva Press, 2009) and<em>The Out-of-Body Shop</em>(<span lang="FR">Plume Editions</span>, 2018.) A 2012 Pushcart Prize winner, she teaches at Salisbury University in Maryland and serves as Associate Editor of Special Features for&#0160;<em>Plume. </em>She can be reached at nancymitchellpoet@gmail.com</p> <p class="Body">&#0160;</p> <p>Nin Andrews&#39; most recent collection, <em>Miss August</em>, was published by CavanKerry in 2017. You can hear her interview with Grace Cavaleiri and see a picture of her with her Boston Terrier <a href="http://www.gracecavalieri.com/poetLaureates/featuredpoet_ninandrews.html">here</a>.&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d022ad37fe5a3200d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-07-10T00:59:58Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad37fe5a1200dPo-biz and Fan Letters to Nancy Mitchell and Amy Gerstler (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-07-10T00:59:58Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><em>Sometimes as poets, we need to get together and bitch,&#0160;</em>my friend, S., says. So last week we got together to bitch about po-biz. Her complaints are familiar ones. Like many poets and writers today, she feels overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated. She’s published a lot, has a few books out, and has had teaching stints here and there, usually as adjunct faculty. But she says, <em>I &#39;m almost never invited to give readings or speak at conferences. I don’t sell many books, and I&#39;m beginning&#0160;to ask myself,</em>&#0160;<em>What the hell am I doing? </em>She points out that the literary world mirrors the economic world. <em>1% of us are rock stars,</em>&#0160;<em>and the rest are street musicians.</em></p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359df9b200c-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Out-of-BodyShop_large" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359df9b200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359df9b200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Out-of-BodyShop_large" /></a></em></p> <p>I tell her my latest absurd idea: I think we should start helping each other, maybe writing each other fan letters. We could&#0160;get pompoms and have pep rallies for fellow poets. I say it as a joke, of course, but the truth is, I love writing fan letters. Sometimes when I can’t write, I imagine myself as a gum-chewing, unstable, teenage &#0160;groupie who is in awe of &#0160;poets, and who writes them fan mail. &#0160;In fact, right now I am in the middle of writing a silly fan letter to Nancy Mitchell because I just started reading her latest book, <em>The Out-of-Body Shop, </em>and it&#39;s terrific. &#0160;My letter begins:&#0160;<br /><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad39fb81a200b-pi" style="float: left;"></a></p> <p><em>Dear Nancy, </em></p> <p><em>Do you have a southern drawl? I swear I can almost hear the lilt when I read your lines. I love a good drawl, and I love your poems even more. Maybe one day I&#39;ll get to hear you read them out loud!&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>I wanted to tell you how the other day when I was getting my hair done, I read your poem, &quot;Work,&quot; the one about working a late-shift at the factory. &#0160;I burst out laughing when I got to the parts where the you talk about a woman who kept her man in line by weaving her hair around his zipper. &quot;What&#39;s so funny?&quot; &#0160;my&#0160;beautician, Kylie, asked, so I read the poem out loud to all the ladies at the&#0160;salon. We laughed so hard, one woman said she almost got perm fluid in her eye. Kylie said to tell you that if you want to keep a man, you just put a little salt on his tail. I don&#39;t know what she means, and I&#39;m not sure I want to know. Do you? </em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>I also loved and laughed at the poem “Praise.”&#0160;</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Praise</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>You be my Sunday</p> <p>morning hot</p> <p>butter-swirled</p> <p>syrup-drizzled</p> <p>whipped-cream-</p> <p>dollop-topped</p> <p>hand-scratch-made</p> <p>pancake.</p> <p>I be your coffee cup,</p> <p>Star-bucked.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>But when I tell S. about my fan letter-idea, she&#39;s not enthused. She&#39;s not in the mood to laugh. Instead she tells me about the literary magazines that accept her submissions and collect fees, but never respond to her work. <em>Years go by</em>, she says, <em>and I hear nothing</em>. Sometimes she writes query notes, and they, too, go unanswered. I know exactly what she means.&#0160;<em>Oh, the unfairness of it all!&#0160;</em>&#0160;</p> <p>I tell her about a rejection note I received years ago that read: <em>Dear Poet, Your poems have been in our office for ten years now. The editor still has not read them and he never will. &#0160;He doesn’t give a shit about your poems or anyone else’s.&#0160; </em>(I learned later at AWP that the note was probably written by a grad student who despised the professor/editor. The review is no longer in existence.)</p> <p>I&#39;m also reminded of my first editorial job. I was in eighth grade, and my friend, Ginny, and I were given the job of editing <em>The Bell Ringer</em>, the eighth literary magazine. After spending a recess reading submissions, we decided that only our own poems deserved publication. We had just ten poems between us, so over the next few days we happily wrote many more, penning our poems in loopy script on stencils before taking them to the office to be mimeographed.&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>In high school, when I reread <em>The Bell Ringer</em>, I was overcome with embarrassment—not only by my egotism but also by the poems. In eighth grade, as it turns out, I had a fondness for words like prettily, merrily, verily, and frolicsome.</p> <p>Also in high school I began working at the New Dominion Bookshop and buying poetry books. There were always a lot of poetry books on the sale table, and C.C.Wells, the bookshop owner gave them to me for a song. C.C. once said he never understood why anyone would want to be a poet because no one wants to buy poetry, much less read it.&#0160; <em>Would anyone write a poet a fan letter?&#0160;</em>he asked once. (Why we were discussing fan mail, I don&#39;t remember.)&#0160;That’s when the idea for writing fan letters to poets began.</p> <p>One afternoon, while working at the shop, I read <em>Some Trees&#0160;</em>by John Ashbery, and I fell in love with his poem, “The Instruction Manual.” I wrote Ashbery my first fan letter:</p> <p><em>Dear John, </em></p> <p><em>Do you mind if I call you John? &#0160;</em></p> <p><em>I am sitting in the New Dominion Bookshop and reading “The Instruction Manual,” and there’s only one customer here, a bald man who called me Missy and asked me, &quot;Ain’t you a pretty little thang?&quot; Have you ever been called a thang, John? Mr. Wells, the bookshop owner, says I should never let on when a customer gives me the creeps, so I am reading your poem, “The Instruction Manual,” and not looking at him and not thinking of the word, thang. I’m saying to myself it’s no big thang. Not like this poem, which I like so much, I am trying to do what it does—resting my elbows on the table and staring out the window so I can be someplace else . . .&#0160;</em></p> <p>That&#39;s just an edited form of my original letter to Ashbury that went on and on about &quot;thangs&quot; and my favorite song back then, &quot;Wild Thang.&quot; Over the years spanning from high school to college and after, I kept a literary journal in which I continued to compose inane and embarrassing fan letters to the likes of Henri Michaux, Denise Duhamel, Robert Bly, Tim Seibles, James Tate, Yannis Ritsos, and Amy Gerstler. I was particularly smitten by Amy Gerstler (whose last name spellcheck always changes to Gerstner).</p> <p>Over the years, I have written a few fan letters to Amy Gerstler. In one early letter I imagined I was sending her <em>The Bell Ringer. </em>I said I had a suspicion that we were kindred, frolicsome souls.&#0160; In another I wrote that I had had a vision that she was the reincarnation of Emily Dickinson. I was certain that if she had her druthers, she would lead a cloistered existence. I asked if she, like Emily, had a large white dog, and if she, like me, was the kind of gal who prefers dogs to men.</p> <p>&#0160; <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359e012200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-07-09 at 7.50.50 PM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359e012200c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359e012200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-07-09 at 7.50.50 PM" /></a>One of my favorite Gerstler books was the out-of-print book, <em>Past Lives</em>, which looks like a grade school composition book and has a few pages that replicate first grade penmanship exercises, other pages with photographs stuck to them, and others are abecedaries and &#0160;others that I can’t describe. You have to see the book to believe it. <em>Past Lives&#0160;</em>might not be Gerstler’s best book, but if you have a slightly perverse sense of humor, this is a book for you.</p> <p>Of course, I didn’t just write fan letters in my journal. I also complained bitterly about po-biz. &#0160;I’ve always hated the process of entering the literary lottery. And like S., I like to bitch. In a one entry, written when I was taking a class in Cleveland with Alberta Turner, I wrote:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Alberta says I should start sending my work out, but I HATE submitting poems!! Just last month I sent 5 poems to New American Writing. I figure I am new to writing and American. So I qualify, right? Wrong. Paul, the editor, wrote back that I didn’t meet his “editorial needs.” What does the term, “editorial needs” mean? Can Paul’s needs be pinpointed? &#0160;Defined? Met? I am feeling miffed.</em></p> <p>&#0160;Miffed was one of Alberta Turner’s words. She said all poets feel miffed. Like me Alberta Turner admired Amy Gerstler. &#0160;I remember once when she spent the night at our house in Cleveland, we talked into the night, and I showed her Gestler&#39;s fan letter to Boy George from her book, <em>The True Bride. &#0160;</em>Clearly, no one writes a fan letter like Amy Gerstler.</p> <p>Dear Boy George,</p> <p>Only three things on earth seem useful or soothing to me. One: wearing stolen clothes. Two: photos of exquisitely dressed redheads. Three, your voice on the radio. Those songs fall smack-dab into my range! Not to embarrass you with my raw American awe, or let you think I’m the kinda girl who bends over for any guy who plucks his eyebrows and can make tight braids—but you’re the plump bisexual cherub of the eighties: clusters of Rubens’ painted angels, plus a dollop of the Pillsbury dough boy, all rolled into one! We could go skating, or just lie around my house eating pineapple. I could pierce your ears: I know how to freeze the lobes with ice so it doesn’t hurt. When I misunderstand your lyrics, they get even better. I thought the line I’M YOUR LOVER, NOT YOUR RIVAL, WAS I’M ANOTHER, NOT THE BIBLE, OR PRIME YOUR MOTHER, NOT A LIBEL, OR UNDERCOVER BOUGHT ARRIVAL. Great, huh? See, we’re of like minds. I almost died when I read in the <em>Times&#0160;</em>how you saved that girl from drowning . . . dived down and pulled the blubbering sissy up. I’d give anything to be the limp, dripping form you stumbled from the lake with, draped over your pale, motherly arms, in a grateful faint, as your mascara ran and ran.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Sometimes as poets, we need to get together and bitch,&#0160;</em>my friend, S., says. So last week we got together to bitch about po-biz. Her complaints are familiar ones. Like many poets and writers today, she feels overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated. She’s published a lot, has a few books out, and has had teaching stints here and there, usually as adjunct faculty. But she says, <em>I &#39;m almost never invited to give readings or speak at conferences. I don’t sell many books, and I&#39;m beginning&#0160;to ask myself,</em>&#0160;<em>What the hell am I doing? </em>She points out that the literary world mirrors the economic world. <em>1% of us are rock stars,</em>&#0160;<em>and the rest are street musicians.</em></p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359df9b200c-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Out-of-BodyShop_large" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359df9b200c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359df9b200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Out-of-BodyShop_large" /></a></em></p> <p>I tell her my latest absurd idea: I think we should start helping each other, maybe writing each other fan letters. We could&#0160;get pompoms and have pep rallies for fellow poets. I say it as a joke, of course, but the truth is, I love writing fan letters. Sometimes when I can’t write, I imagine myself as a gum-chewing, unstable, teenage &#0160;groupie who is in awe of &#0160;poets, and who writes them fan mail. &#0160;In fact, right now I am in the middle of writing a silly fan letter to Nancy Mitchell because I just started reading her latest book, <em>The Out-of-Body Shop, </em>and it&#39;s terrific. &#0160;My letter begins:&#0160;<br /><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad39fb81a200b-pi" style="float: left;"></a></p> <p><em>Dear Nancy, </em></p> <p><em>Do you have a southern drawl? I swear I can almost hear the lilt when I read your lines. I love a good drawl, and I love your poems even more. Maybe one day I&#39;ll get to hear you read them out loud!&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>I wanted to tell you how the other day when I was getting my hair done, I read your poem, &quot;Work,&quot; the one about working a late-shift at the factory. &#0160;I burst out laughing when I got to the parts where the you talk about a woman who kept her man in line by weaving her hair around his zipper. &quot;What&#39;s so funny?&quot; &#0160;my&#0160;beautician, Kylie, asked, so I read the poem out loud to all the ladies at the&#0160;salon. We laughed so hard, one woman said she almost got perm fluid in her eye. Kylie said to tell you that if you want to keep a man, you just put a little salt on his tail. I don&#39;t know what she means, and I&#39;m not sure I want to know. Do you? </em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>I also loved and laughed at the poem “Praise.”&#0160;</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Praise</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>You be my Sunday</p> <p>morning hot</p> <p>butter-swirled</p> <p>syrup-drizzled</p> <p>whipped-cream-</p> <p>dollop-topped</p> <p>hand-scratch-made</p> <p>pancake.</p> <p>I be your coffee cup,</p> <p>Star-bucked.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>But when I tell S. about my fan letter-idea, she&#39;s not enthused. She&#39;s not in the mood to laugh. Instead she tells me about the literary magazines that accept her submissions and collect fees, but never respond to her work. <em>Years go by</em>, she says, <em>and I hear nothing</em>. Sometimes she writes query notes, and they, too, go unanswered. I know exactly what she means.&#0160;<em>Oh, the unfairness of it all!&#0160;</em>&#0160;</p> <p>I tell her about a rejection note I received years ago that read: <em>Dear Poet, Your poems have been in our office for ten years now. The editor still has not read them and he never will. &#0160;He doesn’t give a shit about your poems or anyone else’s.&#0160; </em>(I learned later at AWP that the note was probably written by a grad student who despised the professor/editor. The review is no longer in existence.)</p> <p>I&#39;m also reminded of my first editorial job. I was in eighth grade, and my friend, Ginny, and I were given the job of editing <em>The Bell Ringer</em>, the eighth literary magazine. After spending a recess reading submissions, we decided that only our own poems deserved publication. We had just ten poems between us, so over the next few days we happily wrote many more, penning our poems in loopy script on stencils before taking them to the office to be mimeographed.&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>In high school, when I reread <em>The Bell Ringer</em>, I was overcome with embarrassment—not only by my egotism but also by the poems. In eighth grade, as it turns out, I had a fondness for words like prettily, merrily, verily, and frolicsome.</p> <p>Also in high school I began working at the New Dominion Bookshop and buying poetry books. There were always a lot of poetry books on the sale table, and C.C.Wells, the bookshop owner gave them to me for a song. C.C. once said he never understood why anyone would want to be a poet because no one wants to buy poetry, much less read it.&#0160; <em>Would anyone write a poet a fan letter?&#0160;</em>he asked once. (Why we were discussing fan mail, I don&#39;t remember.)&#0160;That’s when the idea for writing fan letters to poets began.</p> <p>One afternoon, while working at the shop, I read <em>Some Trees&#0160;</em>by John Ashbery, and I fell in love with his poem, “The Instruction Manual.” I wrote Ashbery my first fan letter:</p> <p><em>Dear John, </em></p> <p><em>Do you mind if I call you John? &#0160;</em></p> <p><em>I am sitting in the New Dominion Bookshop and reading “The Instruction Manual,” and there’s only one customer here, a bald man who called me Missy and asked me, &quot;Ain’t you a pretty little thang?&quot; Have you ever been called a thang, John? Mr. Wells, the bookshop owner, says I should never let on when a customer gives me the creeps, so I am reading your poem, “The Instruction Manual,” and not looking at him and not thinking of the word, thang. I’m saying to myself it’s no big thang. Not like this poem, which I like so much, I am trying to do what it does—resting my elbows on the table and staring out the window so I can be someplace else . . .&#0160;</em></p> <p>That&#39;s just an edited form of my original letter to Ashbury that went on and on about &quot;thangs&quot; and my favorite song back then, &quot;Wild Thang.&quot; Over the years spanning from high school to college and after, I kept a literary journal in which I continued to compose inane and embarrassing fan letters to the likes of Henri Michaux, Denise Duhamel, Robert Bly, Tim Seibles, James Tate, Yannis Ritsos, and Amy Gerstler. I was particularly smitten by Amy Gerstler (whose last name spellcheck always changes to Gerstner).</p> <p>Over the years, I have written a few fan letters to Amy Gerstler. In one early letter I imagined I was sending her <em>The Bell Ringer. </em>I said I had a suspicion that we were kindred, frolicsome souls.&#0160; In another I wrote that I had had a vision that she was the reincarnation of Emily Dickinson. I was certain that if she had her druthers, she would lead a cloistered existence. I asked if she, like Emily, had a large white dog, and if she, like me, was the kind of gal who prefers dogs to men.</p> <p>&#0160; <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359e012200c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-07-09 at 7.50.50 PM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359e012200c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b8833022ad359e012200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-07-09 at 7.50.50 PM" /></a>One of my favorite Gerstler books was the out-of-print book, <em>Past Lives</em>, which looks like a grade school composition book and has a few pages that replicate first grade penmanship exercises, other pages with photographs stuck to them, and others are abecedaries and &#0160;others that I can’t describe. You have to see the book to believe it. <em>Past Lives&#0160;</em>might not be Gerstler’s best book, but if you have a slightly perverse sense of humor, this is a book for you.</p> <p>Of course, I didn’t just write fan letters in my journal. I also complained bitterly about po-biz. &#0160;I’ve always hated the process of entering the literary lottery. And like S., I like to bitch. In a one entry, written when I was taking a class in Cleveland with Alberta Turner, I wrote:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Alberta says I should start sending my work out, but I HATE submitting poems!! Just last month I sent 5 poems to New American Writing. I figure I am new to writing and American. So I qualify, right? Wrong. Paul, the editor, wrote back that I didn’t meet his “editorial needs.” What does the term, “editorial needs” mean? Can Paul’s needs be pinpointed? &#0160;Defined? Met? I am feeling miffed.</em></p> <p>&#0160;Miffed was one of Alberta Turner’s words. She said all poets feel miffed. Like me Alberta Turner admired Amy Gerstler. &#0160;I remember once when she spent the night at our house in Cleveland, we talked into the night, and I showed her Gestler&#39;s fan letter to Boy George from her book, <em>The True Bride. &#0160;</em>Clearly, no one writes a fan letter like Amy Gerstler.</p> <p>Dear Boy George,</p> <p>Only three things on earth seem useful or soothing to me. One: wearing stolen clothes. Two: photos of exquisitely dressed redheads. Three, your voice on the radio. Those songs fall smack-dab into my range! Not to embarrass you with my raw American awe, or let you think I’m the kinda girl who bends over for any guy who plucks his eyebrows and can make tight braids—but you’re the plump bisexual cherub of the eighties: clusters of Rubens’ painted angels, plus a dollop of the Pillsbury dough boy, all rolled into one! We could go skating, or just lie around my house eating pineapple. I could pierce your ears: I know how to freeze the lobes with ice so it doesn’t hurt. When I misunderstand your lyrics, they get even better. I thought the line I’M YOUR LOVER, NOT YOUR RIVAL, WAS I’M ANOTHER, NOT THE BIBLE, OR PRIME YOUR MOTHER, NOT A LIBEL, OR UNDERCOVER BOUGHT ARRIVAL. Great, huh? See, we’re of like minds. I almost died when I read in the <em>Times&#0160;</em>how you saved that girl from drowning . . . dived down and pulled the blubbering sissy up. I’d give anything to be the limp, dripping form you stumbled from the lake with, draped over your pale, motherly arms, in a grateful faint, as your mascara ran and ran.</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d0223c8506ae5200c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-06-04T14:17:52Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b88330223c8506ae3200cAn Interview with Charlottes Matthews on Poetry, Cancer, and Whistlewords.org (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-06-04T14:17:52Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>&#0160;</p> <p>NA: I am so excited to be talking with you about your book, <em>Whistle What Can’t Be Said,&#0160;</em>and your project, Whistlewords, which works primarily with women who are cancer patients and survivors. I thought we might begin with an excerpt from your page of Acknowledgements in which you describe the impetus behind writing <em>Whistle What Can&#39;t be Said</em>?</p> <p>CM:&#0160;When I was first diagnosed at the age of 39 with Stage Three Breast Cancer, I was given a hefty notebook to help me navigate all that I was going to experience in the months and years to follow. But something was missing. I hope that the poems in this book might serve to fill the void for others who live in the territory of cancer. I also would like to thank the many, many people who held me in the light during treatment—especially my children, Emma and Garland.</p> <p>NA: I’d ask you to talk about Whistlewords, but I think providing a link might be simpler. It’s such a beautiful website with so much information about you, your great work, and the film-maker Betsy Cox.</p> <p>CM: <a href="https://www.whistlewords.org">Whistlewords.org</a>&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>NA: How did you meet the filmmaker, Betsy Cox? She decided to do a film of your work?&#0160;</p> <p>CM: I met Betsy through my yoga studio. I knew she was a filmmaker and I initially asked if she might be interested in producing a short film to help me gain entry into cancer centers to run workshops. One of her good friends was in treatment at the time, and after Betsy read <em>Whistle What Can’t Be Said</em>, she immediately felt there was a powerful story to be told. Of course, I agreed. She’s a social issue documentary filmmaker, and has done quite a bit of work in the area of women’s health. So together we launched the project with the idea being that the workshops and the work that results will be the subject of a documentary – and that ultimately, we’d create a replicable package (a facilitator’s guide with workshops plans, the film, and anthology) so that anyone anywhere can offer this program. Of course, the film will hopefully also have a life of its own, through festivals, broadcast and on-line distribution.</p> <p>NA: I really love your poem, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” and <a href="https://www.whistlewords.org/film">the film</a>&#0160; Besty produced of it. I was so startled by your comparison of seeing a circus to receiving a cancer diagnosis. Would you be willing to talk about that?&#0160;</p> <p>CM: Sure. The poem describes watching the circus animals unload in the city streets of Washington, D.C. where I grew up. The animals came in on the train and were unloaded a few blocks from Arena Stage. My father stopped the car and we watched it happen. It was stunning, in the literal form of that word, stun being a shortening of the word astonish, to turn to stone, to be dazed and stupefied. I felt almost scorched by what I saw. I was eight and the sight of an enormous giraffe bending her neck to fit through the train door and walk down a steel ramp dazed me. I had the same exact feeling when the oncologist put up my mammogram on the light board and pointed out where my cancer was. I was dazed and transformed. I would never be the same.</p> <p>NA: I also love the title poem, “Whistle What Can’t Be Said,” and I am wondering if you might be willing to post the poem here and then describe the experience that inspired the poem?</p> <p>CM:</p> <p>Whistle What Can&#39;t Be Said</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>During radiation nothing gives—</p> <p>all that steel and glass and plaster,</p> <p>the machine closer and closer until</p> <p>it’s an inch from the absent breast.</p> <p>Why can’t I say what happened?</p> <p>I’m trying to—but I’ve been instructed</p> <p>not to move, not even a millimeter,</p> <p>&#0160;or the radiation will reach my heart.</p> <p>All I want is to hear my neighbor</p> <p>call his cows home at dusk,</p> <p>to see him touch their bellies,</p> <p>feel the fur that swirls between their eyes.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Radiation is stark, the room all machinery and walls. It creates a feeling of suffocation and claustrophobia. Also, the patient must be utterly still or radiation will go where it should not. One time after the technicians had left the room to begin the procedure, I coughed. That made an alarm go off and they had to abort what they were doing. So, while I lay there each day I would imagine in my mind places of spaciousness and expanse. Having spent some very happy years on a cattle farm, I tended to go to that place to find a way to find peace during the procedure.</p> <p>NA: In our conversations, you described how chemotherapy changed your mental state, and in your poem, “Chemo Brain,” you talked about wanting to hide in a space “where no one can/force me to complete/my sentences.”</p> <p>I wondered if you could elaborate? <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330223c850283b200c-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Still_enough_full_cover-cover-70" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330223c850283b200c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330223c850283b200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Still_enough_full_cover-cover-70" /></a></p> <p>CM: Hard one. I guess I would say that diagnosis and treatment for stage three cancer made me a bit fragmented. Like an incomplete sentence, I still harbor a senseof uncertainty. Nothing is for sure in this life. Losing my mother taught me that. And undergoing treatment taught me to live it.</p> <p>NA: There is a lot of mysticism and spiritual depth in your work, a quiet sense of beauty, faith, and longing in both this book and&#0160;your collection, <em>Still Enough to Be Dreaming</em>. You told me once that cancer was a gift?</p> <p>CM: Thank you for that reading of my work. I do feel grateful for each day in a way I never did before. I take very little for granted. What comes to mind are the words of Rachel Carson when she said “Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.” I feel as if living in a state of pretty much constant uncertainty is, in a way, dwelling among the mysteries of the earth.</p> <p>NA: Could you talk about the anthologies and the film forthcoming from Whistlewords?</p> <p>CM: We’re really excited about both! Over the 18 months since the project’s launch, a powerful body of work has been produced. We’re in the process of curating the first Whistle Words’ anthology, and will release it through Amazon later this summer. It will contain journal pages with writing prompts interspersed in each section – I think it’ll make a beautiful, thoughtful and hopefully inspiring gift for any woman facing cancer. We also hope it will help us grow the project’s following going forward and help us leverage funding for the film – and most importantly, empower the women who contributed!</p> <p>Betsy has started filming, and it will begin in earnest this fall. Timing depends on fundraising, of course, and we’re approaching foundations and also looking for community support. We have a <a href="https://www.whistlewords.org/founding-friends">Founding Friends campaign </a>which is lovely – you can give in honor of someone and both your names will appear in the film’s credits. We’ll also launch a kickstarter campaign in the fall.</p> <p>NA: And you said you currently working on a memoir. I&#39;d love a sneak peak!</p> <p>CM: Here&#39;s a short excerpt:</p> <p>Joe Early drove my school bus for ten years. His authority only grew the day a car barreled past the bus’s blinking lights and he launched a tire jack straight through that Volare’s back window.&#0160; For a moment, everything stilled, the filaments of rear window defrosters waving, metallic spider webs in November’s air, metronome cadence of bus lights clicking. Because Joe made the littler kids sit up front and because the bus ride lasted 30 minutes, I’d clocked many an hour staring at the back of Joe’s neck.&#0160;There was a crease in it, a fold of skin, supple and dark. I had the strongest urge to wedge a pencil in it horizontally, to somehow get that close to him. To this day, boarding a bus, I have to keep myself from looking behind the driver’s neck, hoping to find that same lustrous crease.&#0160;</p> <p>The day after the tire jack incident, my father died, suddenly and at work. He had a heart attack, a quiet one, in his chair.&#0160;My father’s chin had dropped to his chest, what must have looked like a cat nap. The next morning, I got up, dressed myself and went to school.&#0160;Because that is what you do during the week.&#0160;And because Joe would be waiting for me at the bus stop. And here was a man I could trust, day in and day out, to pick me up and take me home. &#0160;I kept the fact of my father’s death to myself all the way until third period Latin when I asked our teacher, Imogen Rose, if I could skip the conjugation quiz because my father had died the night before. The look on her face was such a peculiar mixture of disbelief and horror I can replicate it to this day. To get the full impact, one must understand just how Mrs. Rose ran a classroom. If one of us yawned, we were to leave the room, take a brisk lap around the building’s exterior, sleet of February no consideration. <em>Yawning means one is in need of oxygen.</em> When she entered the room we stood up until she lifted her right index finger in the manner of an orchestra conductor. This meant we were to sit back down. The day I wore my school uniform too long, the note she sent home read, <em>Charlotte’s uniform unacceptable, appears as if she is in a ditch, please hem.&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330224e03ec599200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-06-03 at 11.53.43 AM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330224e03ec599200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330224e03ec599200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-06-03 at 11.53.43 AM" /></a>Charlotte Matthews’ most recent book&#0160;<em>Whistle What Can’t Be Said&#0160;</em>(2016)<em>&#0160;</em>chronicles part of her experience with stage three breast cancer. In addition she is author of&#0160;<em>S<u>t</u>ill Enough to Be Dreaming&#0160;</em>(2007)<em>&#0160;and Green Stars&#0160;</em>(2005)<em>.&#0160;</em>Her honors include fellowships from The Chautauqua Institute and The Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Adele F. Robertson Award for Excellence in Teaching. She holds an M.F.A from Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. She teaches in The Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies Program at The University of Virginia. She lives in Crozet with her husband, her two children, a black lab, and a hive of honey bees.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>NA: I am so excited to be talking with you about your book, <em>Whistle What Can’t Be Said,&#0160;</em>and your project, Whistlewords, which works primarily with women who are cancer patients and survivors. I thought we might begin with an excerpt from your page of Acknowledgements in which you describe the impetus behind writing <em>Whistle What Can&#39;t be Said</em>?</p> <p>CM:&#0160;When I was first diagnosed at the age of 39 with Stage Three Breast Cancer, I was given a hefty notebook to help me navigate all that I was going to experience in the months and years to follow. But something was missing. I hope that the poems in this book might serve to fill the void for others who live in the territory of cancer. I also would like to thank the many, many people who held me in the light during treatment—especially my children, Emma and Garland.</p> <p>NA: I’d ask you to talk about Whistlewords, but I think providing a link might be simpler. It’s such a beautiful website with so much information about you, your great work, and the film-maker Betsy Cox.</p> <p>CM: <a href="https://www.whistlewords.org">Whistlewords.org</a>&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>NA: How did you meet the filmmaker, Betsy Cox? She decided to do a film of your work?&#0160;</p> <p>CM: I met Betsy through my yoga studio. I knew she was a filmmaker and I initially asked if she might be interested in producing a short film to help me gain entry into cancer centers to run workshops. One of her good friends was in treatment at the time, and after Betsy read <em>Whistle What Can’t Be Said</em>, she immediately felt there was a powerful story to be told. Of course, I agreed. She’s a social issue documentary filmmaker, and has done quite a bit of work in the area of women’s health. So together we launched the project with the idea being that the workshops and the work that results will be the subject of a documentary – and that ultimately, we’d create a replicable package (a facilitator’s guide with workshops plans, the film, and anthology) so that anyone anywhere can offer this program. Of course, the film will hopefully also have a life of its own, through festivals, broadcast and on-line distribution.</p> <p>NA: I really love your poem, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” and <a href="https://www.whistlewords.org/film">the film</a>&#0160; Besty produced of it. I was so startled by your comparison of seeing a circus to receiving a cancer diagnosis. Would you be willing to talk about that?&#0160;</p> <p>CM: Sure. The poem describes watching the circus animals unload in the city streets of Washington, D.C. where I grew up. The animals came in on the train and were unloaded a few blocks from Arena Stage. My father stopped the car and we watched it happen. It was stunning, in the literal form of that word, stun being a shortening of the word astonish, to turn to stone, to be dazed and stupefied. I felt almost scorched by what I saw. I was eight and the sight of an enormous giraffe bending her neck to fit through the train door and walk down a steel ramp dazed me. I had the same exact feeling when the oncologist put up my mammogram on the light board and pointed out where my cancer was. I was dazed and transformed. I would never be the same.</p> <p>NA: I also love the title poem, “Whistle What Can’t Be Said,” and I am wondering if you might be willing to post the poem here and then describe the experience that inspired the poem?</p> <p>CM:</p> <p>Whistle What Can&#39;t Be Said</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>During radiation nothing gives—</p> <p>all that steel and glass and plaster,</p> <p>the machine closer and closer until</p> <p>it’s an inch from the absent breast.</p> <p>Why can’t I say what happened?</p> <p>I’m trying to—but I’ve been instructed</p> <p>not to move, not even a millimeter,</p> <p>&#0160;or the radiation will reach my heart.</p> <p>All I want is to hear my neighbor</p> <p>call his cows home at dusk,</p> <p>to see him touch their bellies,</p> <p>feel the fur that swirls between their eyes.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Radiation is stark, the room all machinery and walls. It creates a feeling of suffocation and claustrophobia. Also, the patient must be utterly still or radiation will go where it should not. One time after the technicians had left the room to begin the procedure, I coughed. That made an alarm go off and they had to abort what they were doing. So, while I lay there each day I would imagine in my mind places of spaciousness and expanse. Having spent some very happy years on a cattle farm, I tended to go to that place to find a way to find peace during the procedure.</p> <p>NA: In our conversations, you described how chemotherapy changed your mental state, and in your poem, “Chemo Brain,” you talked about wanting to hide in a space “where no one can/force me to complete/my sentences.”</p> <p>I wondered if you could elaborate? <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330223c850283b200c-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Still_enough_full_cover-cover-70" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330223c850283b200c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330223c850283b200c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Still_enough_full_cover-cover-70" /></a></p> <p>CM: Hard one. I guess I would say that diagnosis and treatment for stage three cancer made me a bit fragmented. Like an incomplete sentence, I still harbor a senseof uncertainty. Nothing is for sure in this life. Losing my mother taught me that. And undergoing treatment taught me to live it.</p> <p>NA: There is a lot of mysticism and spiritual depth in your work, a quiet sense of beauty, faith, and longing in both this book and&#0160;your collection, <em>Still Enough to Be Dreaming</em>. You told me once that cancer was a gift?</p> <p>CM: Thank you for that reading of my work. I do feel grateful for each day in a way I never did before. I take very little for granted. What comes to mind are the words of Rachel Carson when she said “Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.” I feel as if living in a state of pretty much constant uncertainty is, in a way, dwelling among the mysteries of the earth.</p> <p>NA: Could you talk about the anthologies and the film forthcoming from Whistlewords?</p> <p>CM: We’re really excited about both! Over the 18 months since the project’s launch, a powerful body of work has been produced. We’re in the process of curating the first Whistle Words’ anthology, and will release it through Amazon later this summer. It will contain journal pages with writing prompts interspersed in each section – I think it’ll make a beautiful, thoughtful and hopefully inspiring gift for any woman facing cancer. We also hope it will help us grow the project’s following going forward and help us leverage funding for the film – and most importantly, empower the women who contributed!</p> <p>Betsy has started filming, and it will begin in earnest this fall. Timing depends on fundraising, of course, and we’re approaching foundations and also looking for community support. We have a <a href="https://www.whistlewords.org/founding-friends">Founding Friends campaign </a>which is lovely – you can give in honor of someone and both your names will appear in the film’s credits. We’ll also launch a kickstarter campaign in the fall.</p> <p>NA: And you said you currently working on a memoir. I&#39;d love a sneak peak!</p> <p>CM: Here&#39;s a short excerpt:</p> <p>Joe Early drove my school bus for ten years. His authority only grew the day a car barreled past the bus’s blinking lights and he launched a tire jack straight through that Volare’s back window.&#0160; For a moment, everything stilled, the filaments of rear window defrosters waving, metallic spider webs in November’s air, metronome cadence of bus lights clicking. Because Joe made the littler kids sit up front and because the bus ride lasted 30 minutes, I’d clocked many an hour staring at the back of Joe’s neck.&#0160;There was a crease in it, a fold of skin, supple and dark. I had the strongest urge to wedge a pencil in it horizontally, to somehow get that close to him. To this day, boarding a bus, I have to keep myself from looking behind the driver’s neck, hoping to find that same lustrous crease.&#0160;</p> <p>The day after the tire jack incident, my father died, suddenly and at work. He had a heart attack, a quiet one, in his chair.&#0160;My father’s chin had dropped to his chest, what must have looked like a cat nap. The next morning, I got up, dressed myself and went to school.&#0160;Because that is what you do during the week.&#0160;And because Joe would be waiting for me at the bus stop. And here was a man I could trust, day in and day out, to pick me up and take me home. &#0160;I kept the fact of my father’s death to myself all the way until third period Latin when I asked our teacher, Imogen Rose, if I could skip the conjugation quiz because my father had died the night before. The look on her face was such a peculiar mixture of disbelief and horror I can replicate it to this day. To get the full impact, one must understand just how Mrs. Rose ran a classroom. If one of us yawned, we were to leave the room, take a brisk lap around the building’s exterior, sleet of February no consideration. <em>Yawning means one is in need of oxygen.</em> When she entered the room we stood up until she lifted her right index finger in the manner of an orchestra conductor. This meant we were to sit back down. The day I wore my school uniform too long, the note she sent home read, <em>Charlotte’s uniform unacceptable, appears as if she is in a ditch, please hem.&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330224e03ec599200d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-06-03 at 11.53.43 AM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b88330224e03ec599200d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b88330224e03ec599200d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-06-03 at 11.53.43 AM" /></a>Charlotte Matthews’ most recent book&#0160;<em>Whistle What Can’t Be Said&#0160;</em>(2016)<em>&#0160;</em>chronicles part of her experience with stage three breast cancer. In addition she is author of&#0160;<em>S<u>t</u>ill Enough to Be Dreaming&#0160;</em>(2007)<em>&#0160;and Green Stars&#0160;</em>(2005)<em>.&#0160;</em>Her honors include fellowships from The Chautauqua Institute and The Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Adele F. Robertson Award for Excellence in Teaching. She holds an M.F.A from Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. She teaches in The Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies Program at The University of Virginia. She lives in Crozet with her husband, her two children, a black lab, and a hive of honey bees.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c962933e970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-04-20T17:56:15Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c962933c970bAn Interview with Poet and Translator, Mary-Sherman Willis (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-04-20T17:56:15Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>This year, my first year back in Charlottesville, Virginia, I had the opportunity to participate once again, both as a reader and an audience-member, in the annual Virginia Festival of the Book. Of all the book festivals I&#39;ve ever attended, this one is my absolute favorite. It always has stellar poets and writes of all kinds, and I leave it feeling uplifted and inspired. Among my favorite readings this year was one given my Mary-Sherman Willis. Witty, smart, and entertaining, Willis mesmerized the audience as she read from her new book of translations of Jean Cocteau&#39;s prose poems, <em>Grace Notes.&#0160;</em> I was so happy when she agreed to an interview.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2ecba42970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-04-20 at 1.24.49 PM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2ecba42970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2ecba42970c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-04-20 at 1.24.49 PM" /></a>NA: I heard you read from <em>Grace Notes&#0160;</em>at the New Dominion Book Shop at this year’s Virginia Festival of the Book, and I was enchanted both by your translations of Jean Cocteau’s prose poems and by your reading and explanations of his work.&#0160; When and where did you begin translating <em>Grace Notes</em>?&#0160;</p> <p>MSW: It was a very happy accident that led me to find him in the poetry section of a small bookstore in a seaside town in Normandy a few years ago. We’d been visiting friends who put us up in what was essentially a garden shed. You had to walk through the greenhouse to get to the bathroom, working your way through hanging grape vines, with slugs and centipedes climbing the walls. I thought it was magic, everything alive like in Belle’s boudoir in Cocteau’s beautiful film, <em>La Belle et la bête</em>—the original 1946 version of “Beauty and the Beast.”</p> <p>Then I spotted&#0160;<em>Appoggiatures&#0160;</em>on the shelf. I saw that they were prose poems. I don’t write prose poems, so I thought I might translate them and learn something.</p> <p>NA: Could you talk about the title,&#0160;<em>Appogiatures</em>?</p> <p>MSW:&#0160; It’s a term from opera, <em>appoggiatura</em>, meaning the little added note the singer inserts before the principal note, a flourish that delays the note and heightens it. In English it’s a <em>grace note</em>.</p> <p>This was Jean Cocteau’s thirteenth book of poems, published in 1953 when he was 64 years old. (He would publish 23 books of poems before his death ten years later, to add to his astonishing list of artistic works.) He’d survived two world wars. The first he’d spent “volunteering” on the Belgian front (the army had rejected him) in a uniform stitched together by a costume designer. In WWII, he was in Paris under Nazi occupation as an openly gay opium addict living with his muse, the actor Jean Maret. He was making films, writing, painting, and doing what it took to survive.</p> <p>By 1953, although his living circumstances were stable for the first time in his life, his health was poor and he was feeling his mortality. A wealthy divorcé had turned&#0160;over her villa in St. Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera to him and his “adopted”&#0160;lover Edouard Dermit. His work was coming smoothly and his reputation was secure.&#0160;So he wrote about death with wit and irony, and disaster as fateful caprice or even a&#0160;joke.The poems are short scenarios that capture the surreality of ordinary life, where&#0160;there’s a thin membrane between states of consciousness, between life and death.&#0160;Poems are the artistic flourish that heightens the experience of life, in full awareness&#0160;of death. They have a kind of Gallic <em>duende</em>, if you can apply Federico Garcia&#0160;Lorca’s term of art.</p> <p>NA: What was it about Jean Cocteau that particularly attracted you to him and his work? &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>MSW: I’ve loved Jean Cocteau since 10<sup>th</sup>grade, when somebody gave me his scandalous memoir, <em>Opium, The Diary of a Cure</em>.<br />We were feeling French and cool, and thought you needed to suffer and get high to make art. He had written the book during one of his many opium “cures,” long stays at a clinic in the country with meals and quiet, usually funded by friends like Coco Chanel. These stays would result in outpourings of work—a novel, some painting, a book of poems—before he was sent home. That sounded like a life to me!</p> <p>Later, it was the films, especially <em>La Belle et la bête, </em>which was on heavy video rotation when my kids were small. The poems came later, as they’re not much translated in the US.</p> <p>NA: I would love you to pick one of the poems from the book, post it here, and then talk about it—as a way of introducing us to the book.</p> <p>MSW:&#0160; Let’s start with this one, about the risks and dangers of artistic creation, and the artist disappearing into his work. Typically, the imagery is cinematically precise. This makes sense; Cocteau had been a busy filmmaker for almost two decades by the time this book appeared. He’s describing a miracle as if it were a documentary.</p> <p>I admire the control he keeps over his syntax. His sentences are plain and declarative until the final one, a sequence of paratactic clauses that mimics the skater’s self-annihilating tour de force.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>THE SKATER</strong></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">The skater launched himself on the virgin ice compelled to reproduce with his weaponized feet the inextricable meander of a line that he carried inside himself, from which nothing could release his soul, straightjacketed as it was and under police interrogation. He would be free if he chiseled at great speed a surface from which the gash threw off shavings of snow. A masterpiece that the spectators applauded as if it were a simple acrobatic exercise. Sometimes he left behind several images of his body that would then rejoin him, preceding him and inviting him to join them. With crossed arms, he leaned, straightened up, sped ahead fast, turned, took off, careful never to break off his calligraphy. For an hour he inscribed his curled upstrokes and downstrokes without a single error. Suddenly, in the middle of the rink and standing still, his scarecrow arms outstretched, he spun into himself, a speeding tornado, until he became a translucent like a spinning propeller, with one difference: he passed through the zone of the visible and</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">disappeared.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>NA: How did you go about translating this collection? Did you have a particular technique? Did you read a lot of Cocteau’s other works? Did you consult with other translators?</p> <p>MSW:&#0160; At first I was just translating these poems for fun. I was in France and just started knocking off one or two a day as we travelled. I’d grown up speaking French as a girl and always intended to try a French translation project but never found the right poet. <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c96292c8970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Raymond-voinquel-1942-cocteau-drawing" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c96292c8970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c96292c8970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Raymond-voinquel-1942-cocteau-drawing" /></a></p> <p>Cocteau interested me as soon as I began to channel his voice into English. He writes a rather formal French, but his ideas are so<br />wild! He blends irony, wordplay, humor and melodrama into these short pieces in ways that have no parallel in American culture. I just loved being in his head.</p> <p>My first pass was to paraphrase the meaning and capture the elevated diction of his French. But then I worried that I’d taken too many liberties, and did another complete revision by translating literally—what’s known to translators as a trot. That produced a stilted mess with the life drained out of his words.</p> <p>The final revisions looked for a middle way, keeping the meaning but dropping in as much as possible of the original syntax, word order, and sound. When those were done, I showed the manuscript to three native French speakers who extracted all sorts of clever double-entendres and idiomatic expressions that had slipped right by me.</p> <p>While I was working on this, I read biographies and translations of Cocteau’s other work. Richard Howard’s translations of Cocteau’s autobiography,<em> Professional Secrets&#0160;</em>is particularly great&#0160;I found a Gallimard annotated edition of Cocteau’s complete poems and discovered that the fifth edition of <em>Appogiatures</em>that I was working from differs from the first. So I ordered a first edition from Paris, the only one published during Cocteau’s lifetime, and adjusted the discrepancies. I also found a 1982 translation of the book from a small San Francisco press—with enough errors in it that I felt justified in doing a new translation.</p> <p>NA: What were some of the biggest challenge of translating these prose poems? Could you give us an example of a passage or prose poem that simply does not translate well into English?</p> <p>MSW: Being French, and a genius, and probably manic, Cocteau could not resist a pun or a word game. Many of these poems hinge on double meanings. For instance, in the poem “The French Language,” a countess utters a declaration to her young lover: <em>“Vous ne supposiez tout de même pas que je le susse!”</em>He bursts into giggles and accuses her of being obscene. She becomes enraged and banishes him, “a victim of love and the French language.”</p> <p>The joke in the poem depends on a problem of conjugation. <em>“Que je le susse”</em>is the literary imperfect subjunctive tense of <em>savoir</em>, to know. The sentence translates, “You don’t really suppose I should have known it!”</p> <p>But to the young fool, it sounds as if she’d said, <em>“ . . . que je le suce,”</em>as in “You don’t really suppose that I should suck it.” (No wonder the countess becomes unhinged!) I stayed with the first meaning of the verb, since it was the countess speaking and using fancy verb tenses. Notes at the back of the book give the alternate readings.</p> <p>Cocteau also composed by stream of consciousness, using a rhyming word game popular with French children. Several of the poems, for instance “Art” and “Crime of Passion,” are particularly surreal in English because their French version is in rhyming soundplay. Luckily, my publisher, Word Works Press, agreed to a bilingual edition for readers who want to sound out these poems.</p> <p>NA: During your reading, you referred to Cocteau’s movie, <em>The Beauty and the Beast</em>, as a film that might have some current as well as historical relevance. Could you elaborate on that?</p> <p>MSW: While immersed in this project, I became interested in the plight of artists in Paris during Nazi occupation, and the choices artists make under oppressive regimes. The Germans admired French culture, but some artists still did things to survive and work which would come to haunt them after the war, when the slur of “collaborator” was being flung around. Cocteau himself made alliances with culture-loving Germans in high places. He made some inoffensive films throughout the war, getting past Vichy censors with relative ease. So his decision in 1946 to make his first post-war film be an old fairy tale was no accident, I believe.</p> <p>“Beauty and the Beast” is about a pure young girl whose love redeems a prince transformed by a curse into a beast. Belle is able to see beyond the Beast’s terrible exterior to the good man inside, and her reward is a prince restored to himself. This girl is a familiar figure to the French: brave Marianne, symbol of the French Republic immortalized by Delacroix and painted in town halls across the country. So I believe that Cocteau was offering an allegory of redemption to the French to remove the stain of collaboration. &#0160;</p> <p>These days, the story has been Disneyfied into a cartoon that even appropriates the living statues and dancing teapots of Cocteau’s original movie. But how powerful that magic still is!</p> <p>NA: How has translating Cocteau changed you as a poet?</p> <p>MSW: I’m writing prose poems lately, after not really seeing the point before. If you’ve got a powerful tool like the linebreak for punctuating your sentences into poems, why give it up for prose? Although he was considered a surrealist, Cocteau was quite traditional in his form. His poems were usually in quatrains in alexandrine meter in <em>abab </em>rhyme. Typically French. So this book was a departure for him too.</p> <p>But after channeling Cocteau’s voice for a few months, I started playing with his associative process to assemble poems. Around 3 a.m. if I can’t sleep, I wait for a line, and then another. Pretty soon I have a little vignette, little flash fiction delivered from the unconscious. That’s new for me. (It beats worrying in the wee hours!)</p> <p>NA: Could we close with a short poem from the book?</p> <p>MSW: Here’s the last poem in the book, a sort of coda. The juxtaposition of beauty and decay, the swan, the sewers, the Chopin waltzes, and the orange gown of sunset on the sea—are pure Cocteau.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Elsewhere</strong></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">How sad he was while writing his lines, proactively coated with swan fat on a lake of birdshit and iridescent mud. How sad he was. He navigated on the ink of pens that had leaked into the pockets of travelers at high altitudes. He navigated and smiled a sort of rictus that fooled no one but the blind reading the Travel News in braille. The fingers of the blind themselves were sad. The reading ended with Chopin waltzes and the hospital echoed with the sadness of their fingers. It was a night when the days grew shorter and dragged upon the sea in a long orange gown. It was a night when the lake became increasingly iridescent next to the seaside sewers. He felt he should follow the vanishing day and sing his death song elsewhere.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">&#0160;</p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0a059791970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="TheRappLibrary-9W" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0a059791970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0a059791970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="TheRappLibrary-9W" /></a>Mary-Sherman Willis, translator of Jean Cocteau’s book of prose poems,&#0160;<em>Grace Notes / Appogiatures</em>, is the author of two poetry collections and numerous essays and reviews on poetry. She has taught at George Washington University and NYU/Shanghai. She earned an MA science writing from the University of Maryland, and an MFA in Poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. Her&#0160;poems and reviews have appeared in the&#0160;<em>New Republic</em>,&#0160;<em>The Plum Review</em>, the&#0160;<em>Hudson Review</em>, the&#0160;<em>Iowa Review</em>,&#0160;<em>Shenandoah</em>,&#0160;<em>Archipelago.org</em>&#0160;and&#0160;<em>Poet Lore</em>,&#0160;<em>Beltway, Gargoyle</em>&#0160;and the&#0160;<em>Southern Poetry Review</em>. Her&#0160;poetry has been published in former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser&#39;s column, &quot;American Life in Poetry.&quot; She lives in Virginia.</p> <p>This year, my first year back in Charlottesville, Virginia, I had the opportunity to participate once again, both as a reader and an audience-member, in the annual Virginia Festival of the Book. Of all the book festivals I&#39;ve ever attended, this one is my absolute favorite. It always has stellar poets and writes of all kinds, and I leave it feeling uplifted and inspired. Among my favorite readings this year was one given my Mary-Sherman Willis. Witty, smart, and entertaining, Willis mesmerized the audience as she read from her new book of translations of Jean Cocteau&#39;s prose poems, <em>Grace Notes.&#0160;</em> I was so happy when she agreed to an interview.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2ecba42970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-04-20 at 1.24.49 PM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2ecba42970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2ecba42970c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-04-20 at 1.24.49 PM" /></a>NA: I heard you read from <em>Grace Notes&#0160;</em>at the New Dominion Book Shop at this year’s Virginia Festival of the Book, and I was enchanted both by your translations of Jean Cocteau’s prose poems and by your reading and explanations of his work.&#0160; When and where did you begin translating <em>Grace Notes</em>?&#0160;</p> <p>MSW: It was a very happy accident that led me to find him in the poetry section of a small bookstore in a seaside town in Normandy a few years ago. We’d been visiting friends who put us up in what was essentially a garden shed. You had to walk through the greenhouse to get to the bathroom, working your way through hanging grape vines, with slugs and centipedes climbing the walls. I thought it was magic, everything alive like in Belle’s boudoir in Cocteau’s beautiful film, <em>La Belle et la bête</em>—the original 1946 version of “Beauty and the Beast.”</p> <p>Then I spotted&#0160;<em>Appoggiatures&#0160;</em>on the shelf. I saw that they were prose poems. I don’t write prose poems, so I thought I might translate them and learn something.</p> <p>NA: Could you talk about the title,&#0160;<em>Appogiatures</em>?</p> <p>MSW:&#0160; It’s a term from opera, <em>appoggiatura</em>, meaning the little added note the singer inserts before the principal note, a flourish that delays the note and heightens it. In English it’s a <em>grace note</em>.</p> <p>This was Jean Cocteau’s thirteenth book of poems, published in 1953 when he was 64 years old. (He would publish 23 books of poems before his death ten years later, to add to his astonishing list of artistic works.) He’d survived two world wars. The first he’d spent “volunteering” on the Belgian front (the army had rejected him) in a uniform stitched together by a costume designer. In WWII, he was in Paris under Nazi occupation as an openly gay opium addict living with his muse, the actor Jean Maret. He was making films, writing, painting, and doing what it took to survive.</p> <p>By 1953, although his living circumstances were stable for the first time in his life, his health was poor and he was feeling his mortality. A wealthy divorcé had turned&#0160;over her villa in St. Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera to him and his “adopted”&#0160;lover Edouard Dermit. His work was coming smoothly and his reputation was secure.&#0160;So he wrote about death with wit and irony, and disaster as fateful caprice or even a&#0160;joke.The poems are short scenarios that capture the surreality of ordinary life, where&#0160;there’s a thin membrane between states of consciousness, between life and death.&#0160;Poems are the artistic flourish that heightens the experience of life, in full awareness&#0160;of death. They have a kind of Gallic <em>duende</em>, if you can apply Federico Garcia&#0160;Lorca’s term of art.</p> <p>NA: What was it about Jean Cocteau that particularly attracted you to him and his work? &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>MSW: I’ve loved Jean Cocteau since 10<sup>th</sup>grade, when somebody gave me his scandalous memoir, <em>Opium, The Diary of a Cure</em>.<br />We were feeling French and cool, and thought you needed to suffer and get high to make art. He had written the book during one of his many opium “cures,” long stays at a clinic in the country with meals and quiet, usually funded by friends like Coco Chanel. These stays would result in outpourings of work—a novel, some painting, a book of poems—before he was sent home. That sounded like a life to me!</p> <p>Later, it was the films, especially <em>La Belle et la bête, </em>which was on heavy video rotation when my kids were small. The poems came later, as they’re not much translated in the US.</p> <p>NA: I would love you to pick one of the poems from the book, post it here, and then talk about it—as a way of introducing us to the book.</p> <p>MSW:&#0160; Let’s start with this one, about the risks and dangers of artistic creation, and the artist disappearing into his work. Typically, the imagery is cinematically precise. This makes sense; Cocteau had been a busy filmmaker for almost two decades by the time this book appeared. He’s describing a miracle as if it were a documentary.</p> <p>I admire the control he keeps over his syntax. His sentences are plain and declarative until the final one, a sequence of paratactic clauses that mimics the skater’s self-annihilating tour de force.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>THE SKATER</strong></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">The skater launched himself on the virgin ice compelled to reproduce with his weaponized feet the inextricable meander of a line that he carried inside himself, from which nothing could release his soul, straightjacketed as it was and under police interrogation. He would be free if he chiseled at great speed a surface from which the gash threw off shavings of snow. A masterpiece that the spectators applauded as if it were a simple acrobatic exercise. Sometimes he left behind several images of his body that would then rejoin him, preceding him and inviting him to join them. With crossed arms, he leaned, straightened up, sped ahead fast, turned, took off, careful never to break off his calligraphy. For an hour he inscribed his curled upstrokes and downstrokes without a single error. Suddenly, in the middle of the rink and standing still, his scarecrow arms outstretched, he spun into himself, a speeding tornado, until he became a translucent like a spinning propeller, with one difference: he passed through the zone of the visible and</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">disappeared.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>NA: How did you go about translating this collection? Did you have a particular technique? Did you read a lot of Cocteau’s other works? Did you consult with other translators?</p> <p>MSW:&#0160; At first I was just translating these poems for fun. I was in France and just started knocking off one or two a day as we travelled. I’d grown up speaking French as a girl and always intended to try a French translation project but never found the right poet. <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c96292c8970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Raymond-voinquel-1942-cocteau-drawing" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c96292c8970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c96292c8970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Raymond-voinquel-1942-cocteau-drawing" /></a></p> <p>Cocteau interested me as soon as I began to channel his voice into English. He writes a rather formal French, but his ideas are so<br />wild! He blends irony, wordplay, humor and melodrama into these short pieces in ways that have no parallel in American culture. I just loved being in his head.</p> <p>My first pass was to paraphrase the meaning and capture the elevated diction of his French. But then I worried that I’d taken too many liberties, and did another complete revision by translating literally—what’s known to translators as a trot. That produced a stilted mess with the life drained out of his words.</p> <p>The final revisions looked for a middle way, keeping the meaning but dropping in as much as possible of the original syntax, word order, and sound. When those were done, I showed the manuscript to three native French speakers who extracted all sorts of clever double-entendres and idiomatic expressions that had slipped right by me.</p> <p>While I was working on this, I read biographies and translations of Cocteau’s other work. Richard Howard’s translations of Cocteau’s autobiography,<em> Professional Secrets&#0160;</em>is particularly great&#0160;I found a Gallimard annotated edition of Cocteau’s complete poems and discovered that the fifth edition of <em>Appogiatures</em>that I was working from differs from the first. So I ordered a first edition from Paris, the only one published during Cocteau’s lifetime, and adjusted the discrepancies. I also found a 1982 translation of the book from a small San Francisco press—with enough errors in it that I felt justified in doing a new translation.</p> <p>NA: What were some of the biggest challenge of translating these prose poems? Could you give us an example of a passage or prose poem that simply does not translate well into English?</p> <p>MSW: Being French, and a genius, and probably manic, Cocteau could not resist a pun or a word game. Many of these poems hinge on double meanings. For instance, in the poem “The French Language,” a countess utters a declaration to her young lover: <em>“Vous ne supposiez tout de même pas que je le susse!”</em>He bursts into giggles and accuses her of being obscene. She becomes enraged and banishes him, “a victim of love and the French language.”</p> <p>The joke in the poem depends on a problem of conjugation. <em>“Que je le susse”</em>is the literary imperfect subjunctive tense of <em>savoir</em>, to know. The sentence translates, “You don’t really suppose I should have known it!”</p> <p>But to the young fool, it sounds as if she’d said, <em>“ . . . que je le suce,”</em>as in “You don’t really suppose that I should suck it.” (No wonder the countess becomes unhinged!) I stayed with the first meaning of the verb, since it was the countess speaking and using fancy verb tenses. Notes at the back of the book give the alternate readings.</p> <p>Cocteau also composed by stream of consciousness, using a rhyming word game popular with French children. Several of the poems, for instance “Art” and “Crime of Passion,” are particularly surreal in English because their French version is in rhyming soundplay. Luckily, my publisher, Word Works Press, agreed to a bilingual edition for readers who want to sound out these poems.</p> <p>NA: During your reading, you referred to Cocteau’s movie, <em>The Beauty and the Beast</em>, as a film that might have some current as well as historical relevance. Could you elaborate on that?</p> <p>MSW: While immersed in this project, I became interested in the plight of artists in Paris during Nazi occupation, and the choices artists make under oppressive regimes. The Germans admired French culture, but some artists still did things to survive and work which would come to haunt them after the war, when the slur of “collaborator” was being flung around. Cocteau himself made alliances with culture-loving Germans in high places. He made some inoffensive films throughout the war, getting past Vichy censors with relative ease. So his decision in 1946 to make his first post-war film be an old fairy tale was no accident, I believe.</p> <p>“Beauty and the Beast” is about a pure young girl whose love redeems a prince transformed by a curse into a beast. Belle is able to see beyond the Beast’s terrible exterior to the good man inside, and her reward is a prince restored to himself. This girl is a familiar figure to the French: brave Marianne, symbol of the French Republic immortalized by Delacroix and painted in town halls across the country. So I believe that Cocteau was offering an allegory of redemption to the French to remove the stain of collaboration. &#0160;</p> <p>These days, the story has been Disneyfied into a cartoon that even appropriates the living statues and dancing teapots of Cocteau’s original movie. But how powerful that magic still is!</p> <p>NA: How has translating Cocteau changed you as a poet?</p> <p>MSW: I’m writing prose poems lately, after not really seeing the point before. If you’ve got a powerful tool like the linebreak for punctuating your sentences into poems, why give it up for prose? Although he was considered a surrealist, Cocteau was quite traditional in his form. His poems were usually in quatrains in alexandrine meter in <em>abab </em>rhyme. Typically French. So this book was a departure for him too.</p> <p>But after channeling Cocteau’s voice for a few months, I started playing with his associative process to assemble poems. Around 3 a.m. if I can’t sleep, I wait for a line, and then another. Pretty soon I have a little vignette, little flash fiction delivered from the unconscious. That’s new for me. (It beats worrying in the wee hours!)</p> <p>NA: Could we close with a short poem from the book?</p> <p>MSW: Here’s the last poem in the book, a sort of coda. The juxtaposition of beauty and decay, the swan, the sewers, the Chopin waltzes, and the orange gown of sunset on the sea—are pure Cocteau.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Elsewhere</strong></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">How sad he was while writing his lines, proactively coated with swan fat on a lake of birdshit and iridescent mud. How sad he was. He navigated on the ink of pens that had leaked into the pockets of travelers at high altitudes. He navigated and smiled a sort of rictus that fooled no one but the blind reading the Travel News in braille. The fingers of the blind themselves were sad. The reading ended with Chopin waltzes and the hospital echoed with the sadness of their fingers. It was a night when the days grew shorter and dragged upon the sea in a long orange gown. It was a night when the lake became increasingly iridescent next to the seaside sewers. He felt he should follow the vanishing day and sing his death song elsewhere.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">&#0160;</p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0a059791970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="TheRappLibrary-9W" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0a059791970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0a059791970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="TheRappLibrary-9W" /></a>Mary-Sherman Willis, translator of Jean Cocteau’s book of prose poems,&#0160;<em>Grace Notes / Appogiatures</em>, is the author of two poetry collections and numerous essays and reviews on poetry. She has taught at George Washington University and NYU/Shanghai. She earned an MA science writing from the University of Maryland, and an MFA in Poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. Her&#0160;poems and reviews have appeared in the&#0160;<em>New Republic</em>,&#0160;<em>The Plum Review</em>, the&#0160;<em>Hudson Review</em>, the&#0160;<em>Iowa Review</em>,&#0160;<em>Shenandoah</em>,&#0160;<em>Archipelago.org</em>&#0160;and&#0160;<em>Poet Lore</em>,&#0160;<em>Beltway, Gargoyle</em>&#0160;and the&#0160;<em>Southern Poetry Review</em>. Her&#0160;poetry has been published in former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser&#39;s column, &quot;American Life in Poetry.&quot; She lives in Virginia.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c956cb3e970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-03-09T17:41:39Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c956cb3c970bAn Interview with Tom Sleigh [by Nin Andrews]http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-03-09T17:41:38Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2e1172b970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 12.00.18 PM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2e1172b970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2e1172b970c-200wi" style="width: 190px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 12.00.18 PM" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09fa12db970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 12.00.41 PM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09fa12db970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09fa12db970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 12.00.41 PM" /></a>NA: I just finished reading your book of poetry, <em>House of Fact, House of Ruin</em>, and your essay collection, <em>The Land Between Two Rivers</em>, and I am, quite simply, in awe. I don’t know where to begin. There is so much to love in these books. I assume you wrote them together?</p> <p>TS: I wrote <em>The Land Between Two Rivers</em> over a decade, and <em>House of Fact, House of Ruin </em>over the past three or four years. But if you go back to when the first essay was written in 2007, I was also writing the poems that appear in <em>Army Cats</em>. So you might call <em>Army Cats</em> the first installment in an unofficial poetic trilogy about war, refugees, and state violence. The second part would be <em>Station Zed</em>, which focuses on Somali refugees in Somalia and Kenya, and on a trip to Iraq just as ISIL was beginning to establish its so-called &quot;caliphate.&quot; But I didn&#39;t consciously set out to do this: the &quot;music of what happens,&quot; to quote Seamus Heaney, had as much to do with it as any intention on my part.</p> <p>NA: In both collections you begin in war zones, or rather, countries that are in the shadow of wars. When I reflect on your poems and essays, my mind keeps returning to the image of the lizard in the opening poem of <em>House of Fact, House of Ruin</em>, a lizard with “eyes expressionless, giving and withholding nothing.” I would love to hear you say a few words both about that opening poem.</p> <p>TS: I had the poems of Tomas Tranströmer in mind when I wrote that poem. I know that sounds odd, but as I was traveling with a militia in Libya just before the country came apart in 2014, I kept seeing lizards when our little convoy would stop at evening. At a certain point in our trip, we were travelling over sand tracks in open desert country so it wasn&#39;t safe to drive at night. If we were sleeping outdoors, we&#39;d set up camp at a watering hole where a few families might be living as herdsmen, but also running a restaurant for travellers like us. I remember watching the lizards come out in the cool of evening and feeling such admiration for them: how tough they were to be able to survive out here, how agile and quick! Plus, they were completely indifferent to human beings, and went about their business, hunting, copulating, bearing young. But they were also just a bit spooky: little dragons, you might say, who could vanish into even the smallest cracks in a cinderblock wall. And they began to take on this quality of the uncanny about them, what the Beowulf poet in Old English calls &quot;the wyrd.&quot; And just as the poems of Tranströmer often project an air of menace and transcendence—menace as transcendence—so the lizards, at least as I remembered them when I was writing the poem, were like spirit animals who could survive anywhere—infinitely tougher than human beings. Living in close proximity to us, they&#39;ve seen us in our worst moments—our wars, our public and private despairs. But they&#39;ve also seen us at moments of more hopeful possibility: I remember how, in a maternity ward in Nairobi, a group of pregnant Somali women in a little cinderblock hospital would watch the lizards dashing up and down the seams of the bundled up mosquito nets that at night would canopy their beds. And so the lizards seemed to inhabit a parallel world to ours, but a world that would go on eon after eon—while our world, of course, is desperate and fragile and always ending.</p> <p>NA: Were you able to actually write poetry when you were in Libya? Mogadishu? Or did you take notes and photographs and write later?</p> <p>TS: No, not really. When I&#39;m writing these pieces I&#39;m totally focused on taking notes on anything and everything NOT ME. I have almost no thoughts or feelings that don&#39;t relate to what&#39;s going on outside of me. I love the release of not having to worry about being &quot;Tom.&quot; I&#39;m trying to record everything I&#39;m seeing in as precise detail and with as much fidelity to the complexity of the situation as I can. Again, Seamus Heaney has a beautiful phrase for this state of being completely absorbed in the outside world, in which all your attention is devoted to recording &quot;the primal reach into the physical.&quot; And as to photographs, I almost never take them. I have a very good memory for physical detail and for conversation. The poems come after I return, after I&#39;ve had a little while to come down. I&#39;m in a very heightened state of alertness when I&#39;m doing these essays, partly because I don&#39;t go in with a fixed idea about &quot;the story.&quot; There&#39;s a lot of chance and serendipity and sheer dumb luck in how my stories come to me.</p> <p><br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2e1172b970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 12.00.18 PM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2e1172b970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2e1172b970c-200wi" style="width: 190px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 12.00.18 PM" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09fa12db970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 12.00.41 PM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09fa12db970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09fa12db970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 12.00.41 PM" /></a>NA: I just finished reading your book of poetry, <em>House of Fact, House of Ruin</em>, and your essay collection, <em>The Land Between Two Rivers</em>, and I am, quite simply, in awe. I don’t know where to begin. There is so much to love in these books. I assume you wrote them together?</p> <p>TS: I wrote <em>The Land Between Two Rivers</em> over a decade, and <em>House of Fact, House of Ruin </em>over the past three or four years. But if you go back to when the first essay was written in 2007, I was also writing the poems that appear in <em>Army Cats</em>. So you might call <em>Army Cats</em> the first installment in an unofficial poetic trilogy about war, refugees, and state violence. The second part would be <em>Station Zed</em>, which focuses on Somali refugees in Somalia and Kenya, and on a trip to Iraq just as ISIL was beginning to establish its so-called &quot;caliphate.&quot; But I didn&#39;t consciously set out to do this: the &quot;music of what happens,&quot; to quote Seamus Heaney, had as much to do with it as any intention on my part.</p> <p>NA: In both collections you begin in war zones, or rather, countries that are in the shadow of wars. When I reflect on your poems and essays, my mind keeps returning to the image of the lizard in the opening poem of <em>House of Fact, House of Ruin</em>, a lizard with “eyes expressionless, giving and withholding nothing.” I would love to hear you say a few words both about that opening poem.</p> <p>TS: I had the poems of Tomas Tranströmer in mind when I wrote that poem. I know that sounds odd, but as I was traveling with a militia in Libya just before the country came apart in 2014, I kept seeing lizards when our little convoy would stop at evening. At a certain point in our trip, we were travelling over sand tracks in open desert country so it wasn&#39;t safe to drive at night. If we were sleeping outdoors, we&#39;d set up camp at a watering hole where a few families might be living as herdsmen, but also running a restaurant for travellers like us. I remember watching the lizards come out in the cool of evening and feeling such admiration for them: how tough they were to be able to survive out here, how agile and quick! Plus, they were completely indifferent to human beings, and went about their business, hunting, copulating, bearing young. But they were also just a bit spooky: little dragons, you might say, who could vanish into even the smallest cracks in a cinderblock wall. And they began to take on this quality of the uncanny about them, what the Beowulf poet in Old English calls &quot;the wyrd.&quot; And just as the poems of Tranströmer often project an air of menace and transcendence—menace as transcendence—so the lizards, at least as I remembered them when I was writing the poem, were like spirit animals who could survive anywhere—infinitely tougher than human beings. Living in close proximity to us, they&#39;ve seen us in our worst moments—our wars, our public and private despairs. But they&#39;ve also seen us at moments of more hopeful possibility: I remember how, in a maternity ward in Nairobi, a group of pregnant Somali women in a little cinderblock hospital would watch the lizards dashing up and down the seams of the bundled up mosquito nets that at night would canopy their beds. And so the lizards seemed to inhabit a parallel world to ours, but a world that would go on eon after eon—while our world, of course, is desperate and fragile and always ending.</p> <p>NA: Were you able to actually write poetry when you were in Libya? Mogadishu? Or did you take notes and photographs and write later?</p> <p>TS: No, not really. When I&#39;m writing these pieces I&#39;m totally focused on taking notes on anything and everything NOT ME. I have almost no thoughts or feelings that don&#39;t relate to what&#39;s going on outside of me. I love the release of not having to worry about being &quot;Tom.&quot; I&#39;m trying to record everything I&#39;m seeing in as precise detail and with as much fidelity to the complexity of the situation as I can. Again, Seamus Heaney has a beautiful phrase for this state of being completely absorbed in the outside world, in which all your attention is devoted to recording &quot;the primal reach into the physical.&quot; And as to photographs, I almost never take them. I have a very good memory for physical detail and for conversation. The poems come after I return, after I&#39;ve had a little while to come down. I&#39;m in a very heightened state of alertness when I&#39;m doing these essays, partly because I don&#39;t go in with a fixed idea about &quot;the story.&quot; There&#39;s a lot of chance and serendipity and sheer dumb luck in how my stories come to me.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c953a6ee970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2018-02-27T15:11:48Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c953a6ec970bAN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID WOJAHN [by Nin Andrews]http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-02-27T15:11:47Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2de083c970c-pi"> </a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c953a600970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-02-27 at 9.35.57 AM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c953a600970b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c953a600970b-500wi" title="Screen Shot 2018-02-27 at 9.35.57 AM" />I</a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2de083c970c-pi"><br /></a></p> <p>&#0160;I&#0160;recently moved back to my hometown, Charlottesville, Virginia. One of the most exciting events in Charlottesville is their annual <a href="http://www.vabook.org">Virginia Festival of the Book</a>. In preparation for the festival, I have been reading the books of some of the featured presenters. I thought I might interview a few of the poets that I am most looking forward to hearing read, starting with David Wojahn&#39;s collection,&#0160;<em>For the Scribe</em>. &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>NA: Tell me about the evolution of your latest collection, <em>For the Scribe?</em> How did it begin?</p> <p>DW: Thanks for the kind words. I’ve always considered myself an elegiac poet, but in the case of this book I wanted to break out of that mode. I’d never really had much interest in writing about “nature,” so I thought I might start there—with some animal poems, for example. But I found that the only poems of this sort that I could write were about <em>extinct</em> animals: passenger pigeons, Tasmanian tigers, ivory-billed woodpeckers. These poems became a series within the book, and the collection started to arrange itself around them. And so I couldn’t escape from elegy after all, despite my efforts! The intention of the book, I guess, is to find the means to move between personal losses—death of family, beloveds, and friends—and loss on a grander scale: threats to what used to be called our democratic institutions, ecological destruction, apocalypse. I also tend to arrange my books around sequences, groups of related poems, or poems in multiple sections that can run to ten or more pages. There are five such sequences in the new book, and I try to get these longer pieces to be in dialogue with the shorter lyrics.</p> <p>NA: I love how you make the political personal and vice versa. While eating bivalves, for example, you think of prisoners being force-fed at Guantanamo. I’m wondering if you might say a few words about your poetic intuition, your process, and this kind of weaving you so beautifully do.</p> <p>DW: The poets who have most inspired me over the years are figures like George Oppen, Thomas McGrath, Muriel Rukeyser, and especially Robert Lowell. These writers didn’t draw a great distinction between the personal and the ideological, and they taught me how important it is for a poem to try to navigate between the micro and the macro, the private life of the individual and a public reckoning with history and politics. Finding the means to make those two things merge and commingle is a task that feels essential to me--as a moral imperative as much as an aesthetic one. “Political” poetry that merely rants in a preaching-to-the-choir way simply bores me; so does autobiographical poetry that doesn’t seek to find some respite from mere self-disclosure. But when these two intentions can come together, can alchemize into a third thing, then the poem has a chance to avoid agit-prop on the one hand, navel-gazing on the other.</p> <p>NA: I had to laugh out loud when I started reading “Nineteen Eleven Blues,” which opens with Ronald Reagan talking about Elizabeth Bishop. I wondered if we could post that here. And maybe say a few words about it?</p> <p>DW: I wrote an essay awhile back about Bishop and Reagan, about the America Reagan represents and the one that Bishop exemplifies. I am bewildered by the way that even people on the left who should know better think of Reagan as great leader—to me he was simply an intellectually impoverished reactionary and a genial criminal. Bishop was a fundamentally apolitical individual, but her work is profoundly democratic and progressive; it continues, on its smaller scale, the transcendentalist tradition of Emerson and Whitman.</p> <p>Bishop and Reagan were born within 48 hours of one another, in February of 1911. Czselaw Milosz, another figure who’s a touchstone for me, was born a couple of months later, as was the greatest of the Delta Blues singers, Robert Johnson--in one of her letters to Robert Lowell, Bishop rhapsodizes about hearing an LP of Robert Johnson’s songs. Bishop, Milosz, and Johnson had more in common than their birthdates: they’re artists who obsessively write about the conditions of loneliness and exile, and do so with immense invention. So I wanted to find a way to write about them, and came up with the notion of having each of them compose little essays <em>on one another</em>. So Milosz speaks about Reagan in a sonnet that samples some lines from one of his essays; Johnson speaks about Bishop and Milosz in a poem modelled after one of his blues lyrics, and Bishop writes about Johnson in a villanelle. That left Reagan to write about Bishop, again in the form of a sonnet, though in the poem Reagan’s not exactly capable of much insight. In college he actually attempted to write some poems, although I can’t say I’d recommend them.</p> <p>NA: When I was a student at Vermont, one of your colleagues called you a poet of dark lyricism and a poet who is not afraid to be challenging. He contrasted you with what he called “chatty, undisciplined poets of our day.” Is that how you see yourself?</p> <p>DW: I suppose my poems <em>are </em>dark. I love good comic poetry—Kenneth Koch is a favorite of mine—but couldn’t write comedy if you put a gun to my head. But I have a special affection for poetry that challenges me, intellectually and emotively. And that often means difficult or allusive poetry. I love something Geoffrey Hill wrote: “Whatever strange relationship we have with the poem, it is not one of enjoyment. It is like being brushed past, or aside, by an alien being.” My sense of what a poem should do isn’t <em>that</em> haughty and dyspeptic, but the poems I most admire are always aware that the diction of poetry can be different from the conversational, that it can be strange and majestic like the language of <em>The Book of Common Prayer—</em>you heard passages from that book a lot if you grew up, as I did, as an Episcopalian in the ‘50s. On the other hand, I write a lot about popular culture, music especially, and also films. Subjects like these don’t always mix very well with a Grand Style. I like it when my poems can function as mash-ups of high and low cultural allusions, of high and vernacular diction. I also like to write in a variety of formal and metrical approaches—free verse in one poem, received form in another. What purpose does it serve to favor one method over the other? Louis Zukofsky said that poetry’s upper limit is music, its lower limit speech. I want a poetry that moves steadily between one limit and the other.</p> <p>NA: You are often referred to as a political poet. How do you keep your head, your heart—your poetry alive in this insane time?<span style="text-decoration: line-through;"><br /></span></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2de083c970c-pi"> </a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c953a600970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-02-27 at 9.35.57 AM" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c953a600970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c953a600970b-500wi" title="Screen Shot 2018-02-27 at 9.35.57 AM" />I</a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2de083c970c-pi"><br /></a></p> <p>&#0160;I&#0160;recently moved back to my hometown, Charlottesville, Virginia. One of the most exciting events in Charlottesville is their annual <a href="http://www.vabook.org">Virginia Festival of the Book</a>. In preparation for the festival, I have been reading the books of some of the featured presenters. I thought I might interview a few of the poets that I am most looking forward to hearing read, starting with David Wojahn&#39;s collection,&#0160;<em>For the Scribe</em>. &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>NA: Tell me about the evolution of your latest collection, <em>For the Scribe?</em> How did it begin?</p> <p>DW: Thanks for the kind words. I’ve always considered myself an elegiac poet, but in the case of this book I wanted to break out of that mode. I’d never really had much interest in writing about “nature,” so I thought I might start there—with some animal poems, for example. But I found that the only poems of this sort that I could write were about <em>extinct</em> animals: passenger pigeons, Tasmanian tigers, ivory-billed woodpeckers. These poems became a series within the book, and the collection started to arrange itself around them. And so I couldn’t escape from elegy after all, despite my efforts! The intention of the book, I guess, is to find the means to move between personal losses—death of family, beloveds, and friends—and loss on a grander scale: threats to what used to be called our democratic institutions, ecological destruction, apocalypse. I also tend to arrange my books around sequences, groups of related poems, or poems in multiple sections that can run to ten or more pages. There are five such sequences in the new book, and I try to get these longer pieces to be in dialogue with the shorter lyrics.</p> <p>NA: I love how you make the political personal and vice versa. While eating bivalves, for example, you think of prisoners being force-fed at Guantanamo. I’m wondering if you might say a few words about your poetic intuition, your process, and this kind of weaving you so beautifully do.</p> <p>DW: The poets who have most inspired me over the years are figures like George Oppen, Thomas McGrath, Muriel Rukeyser, and especially Robert Lowell. These writers didn’t draw a great distinction between the personal and the ideological, and they taught me how important it is for a poem to try to navigate between the micro and the macro, the private life of the individual and a public reckoning with history and politics. Finding the means to make those two things merge and commingle is a task that feels essential to me--as a moral imperative as much as an aesthetic one. “Political” poetry that merely rants in a preaching-to-the-choir way simply bores me; so does autobiographical poetry that doesn’t seek to find some respite from mere self-disclosure. But when these two intentions can come together, can alchemize into a third thing, then the poem has a chance to avoid agit-prop on the one hand, navel-gazing on the other.</p> <p>NA: I had to laugh out loud when I started reading “Nineteen Eleven Blues,” which opens with Ronald Reagan talking about Elizabeth Bishop. I wondered if we could post that here. And maybe say a few words about it?</p> <p>DW: I wrote an essay awhile back about Bishop and Reagan, about the America Reagan represents and the one that Bishop exemplifies. I am bewildered by the way that even people on the left who should know better think of Reagan as great leader—to me he was simply an intellectually impoverished reactionary and a genial criminal. Bishop was a fundamentally apolitical individual, but her work is profoundly democratic and progressive; it continues, on its smaller scale, the transcendentalist tradition of Emerson and Whitman.</p> <p>Bishop and Reagan were born within 48 hours of one another, in February of 1911. Czselaw Milosz, another figure who’s a touchstone for me, was born a couple of months later, as was the greatest of the Delta Blues singers, Robert Johnson--in one of her letters to Robert Lowell, Bishop rhapsodizes about hearing an LP of Robert Johnson’s songs. Bishop, Milosz, and Johnson had more in common than their birthdates: they’re artists who obsessively write about the conditions of loneliness and exile, and do so with immense invention. So I wanted to find a way to write about them, and came up with the notion of having each of them compose little essays <em>on one another</em>. So Milosz speaks about Reagan in a sonnet that samples some lines from one of his essays; Johnson speaks about Bishop and Milosz in a poem modelled after one of his blues lyrics, and Bishop writes about Johnson in a villanelle. That left Reagan to write about Bishop, again in the form of a sonnet, though in the poem Reagan’s not exactly capable of much insight. In college he actually attempted to write some poems, although I can’t say I’d recommend them.</p> <p>NA: When I was a student at Vermont, one of your colleagues called you a poet of dark lyricism and a poet who is not afraid to be challenging. He contrasted you with what he called “chatty, undisciplined poets of our day.” Is that how you see yourself?</p> <p>DW: I suppose my poems <em>are </em>dark. I love good comic poetry—Kenneth Koch is a favorite of mine—but couldn’t write comedy if you put a gun to my head. But I have a special affection for poetry that challenges me, intellectually and emotively. And that often means difficult or allusive poetry. I love something Geoffrey Hill wrote: “Whatever strange relationship we have with the poem, it is not one of enjoyment. It is like being brushed past, or aside, by an alien being.” My sense of what a poem should do isn’t <em>that</em> haughty and dyspeptic, but the poems I most admire are always aware that the diction of poetry can be different from the conversational, that it can be strange and majestic like the language of <em>The Book of Common Prayer—</em>you heard passages from that book a lot if you grew up, as I did, as an Episcopalian in the ‘50s. On the other hand, I write a lot about popular culture, music especially, and also films. Subjects like these don’t always mix very well with a Grand Style. I like it when my poems can function as mash-ups of high and low cultural allusions, of high and vernacular diction. I also like to write in a variety of formal and metrical approaches—free verse in one poem, received form in another. What purpose does it serve to favor one method over the other? Louis Zukofsky said that poetry’s upper limit is music, its lower limit speech. I want a poetry that moves steadily between one limit and the other.</p> <p>NA: You are often referred to as a political poet. How do you keep your head, your heart—your poetry alive in this insane time?<span style="text-decoration: line-through;"><br /></span></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c93e74b3970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-12-19T22:04:14Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c93e74b1970bThe Poet and the Poem, the Artist and her Art, The Criminal and the Crime, How Similar Are They?http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-12-19T22:04:14Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09e17fc9970d-pi" style="float: left;"> </a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c93e72dc970b-pi"><img alt="Inherent slipperiness of a writer" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c93e72dc970b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c93e72dc970b-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Inherent slipperiness of a writer" /></a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09e17fc9970d-pi" style="float: left;"><br /></a></p> <div> <p>&#0160;</p> <p id="m_-4709661260002108257gmail-yui_3_17_2_2_1513621925998_12881">I know--it&#39;s a funny question, but it first occurred to me when I was getting my MFA at Vermont College, and my beautiful friend, Alicia, with her long, wavy golden hair (I mean, she&#39;s one of the most gorgeous women I have ever met)&#0160;went out on the town one night with some famous visiting poets, and when she came back, she was horrified. &quot;The poets!&quot;&#0160;she said. &quot;They were such creeps!&quot;&#0160;She added that she thought, after reading their work, that they would be &quot;like angels.&quot;&#0160;</p> <p>I told her how, before I went to church, I thought Christians were, well, Christian. &quot;Wow, you really are out of touch!&quot; she laughed. &quot;What planet did you grow up on?&quot;</p> <p>I have often wondered: how far we are from the message or story or image we send into the world? Of course, fiction writers aren&#39;t held up to the same standard as poets. We don&#39;t expect Stephen King to be a psycho-murderer.&#0160;But poets are often equated with the work they create. Maybe it&#39;s a problem of the the first-person in poetry. &#0160;Am I really the <em>I</em> in my confessional poems? Are you? Yes or no, we create a certain kind of expectation. After all, I think readers like to identify with writers in one way or another.&#0160;</p> <p>It&#39;s that kind of identification I wonder at. I wonder about it with cities, too. Because I think of places as stories, as personalities, and I travel to them with certain expectations.&#0160;</p> <p>When I was moving back to Charlottesville, the story I read about it was of a lovely, exciting, liberal University town. I was relieved to think it had changed so much from the Charlottesville I grew up in, which was a stunningly beautiful but racist, sleepy, southern town, much like the fictional Lessington, Virginia I wrote about in&#0160;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://cavankerrypress.org/product/miss-august/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1513804970355000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH5deAqES-gcspb6n2_am7P3Nwb9g" href="https://cavankerrypress.org/product/miss-august/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Miss August</a>. But then, last summer there was that horrific White Supremacist rally in Charlottesville. And since I&#39;ve moved, many have written me to ask what it&#39;s like here. Is Charlottesville a racist city? How is the town coping with what happened? Do people talk about the tragedy? I don&#39;t know the answers, but from what I have &#0160;read in the&#0160;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://www.charlottesvilleindependentreview.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1513804970355000&amp;usg=AFQjCNELnw2NH5LGSqbfN58oRDVqVWgEnA" href="https://www.charlottesvilleindependentreview.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Heaphy Report</a>, the story is both beyond upsetting and it&#39;s ongoing.</p> <p>In the aftermath of the event, many of the counter-protesters are being sued, and until a week ago, there were plans for another Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August of 2018. The &#0160;protesters, as one friend explained it,&#0160;have learned to tell a legally defensible story. They have figured out how to situate themselves on the right side of the law. And how to frame the story in their favor. &#0160;And our dear President has joined them in that effort.&#0160;</p> <p>Is that even possible? I am still just dumbstruck by the whole thing.</p> <p>But it brings me to my last point, or the last thing rambling around in my brain today . . .&#0160;</p> <p>In his recent article in the New Yorker,&#0160;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://ninandrews.squarespace.com/blog/Both%2520Haysom%2520and%2520Soering%2520were%2520writers%2520in%2520college,%2520and%2520both%2520have%2520become%2520successful%2520authors%2520who%2520have%2520published%2520from%2520prison.%2520That%2520haunted%2520me,%2520too%25E2%2580%2594partly%2520because%2520there%25E2%2580%2599s%2520an%2520inherent%2520slipperiness%2520involved%2520in%2520interviewing%2520people%2520who%2520know%2520how%2520stories%2520are%2520composed,%2520and%2520partly%2520because%2520the%2520coverup%2520itself%2520seemed%2520to%2520have%2520literary%2520attributes.%2520As%2520I%2520put%2520it%2520in%2520the%2520magazine%2520piece:%2520%25E2%2580%259CAt%2520least%2520one%2520of%2520the%2520people%2520implicated%2520has%2520been%2520hiding%2520the%2520truth%2520with%2520a%2520writer%25E2%2580%2599s%2520mind.%25E2%2580%259D&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1513804970355000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHEia_t6OQ1HQuhShwIZBcyWeSmhA" href="https://ninandrews.squarespace.com/blog/Both%20Haysom%20and%20Soering%20were%20writers%20in%20college,%20and%20both%20have%20become%20successful%20authors%20who%20have%20published%20from%20prison.%20That%20haunted%20me,%20too%E2%80%94partly%20because%20there%E2%80%99s%20an%20inherent%20slipperiness%20involved%20in%20interviewing%20people%20who%20know%20how%20stories%20are%20composed,%20and%20partly%20because%20the%20coverup%20itself%20seemed%20to%20have%20literary%20attributes.%20As%20I%20put%20it%20in%20the%20magazine%20piece:%20%E2%80%9CAt%20least%20one%20of%20the%20people%20implicated%20has%20been%20hiding%20the%20truth%20with%20a%20writer%E2%80%99s%20mind.%E2%80%9D" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Double Murder Case That Still Haunts Me</a>, Nathan Heller writes about a gruesome double-murder that happened in the 1980s in Lynchburg, an hour down the road from Charlottesville.&#0160; It was a murder that caught the attention of the public back in the &#39;80&#39;s, and that the short story writer,&#0160;Peter Taylor, and his wife, the poet, Eleanor Ross Taylor,&#0160;talked about at length when we visited with them that year. The murderers, Elizabeth Haysom and Jen Soering, were top UVA students and talented writers, which was why the Taylors were especially stunned by their story. Now, years later, a documentary has been made about the case. Everyone is still questioning what exactly took place.</p> <p>But it is the murderers&#39; ability as writers that causes Nathan Heller to question them. He writes:&#0160;</p> <p id="m_-4709661260002108257gmail-yui_3_17_2_2_1513621925998_12894"><em id="m_-4709661260002108257gmail-yui_3_17_2_2_1513621925998_12893">Both Haysom and Soering were writers in college, and both have become successful authors who have published from prison. That haunted me, too—partly because there’s an inherent slipperiness involved in interviewing people who know how stories are composed, and partly because the coverup itself seemed to have literary attributes. As I put it in the magazine piece: “At least one of the people implicated has been hiding the truth with a writer’s mind.&quot;</em></p> </div> <div class="yj6qo ajU">&#0160;</div> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09e17fc9970d-pi" style="float: left;"> </a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c93e72dc970b-pi"><img alt="Inherent slipperiness of a writer" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c93e72dc970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c93e72dc970b-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Inherent slipperiness of a writer" /></a><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09e17fc9970d-pi" style="float: left;"><br /></a></p> <div> <p>&#0160;</p> <p id="m_-4709661260002108257gmail-yui_3_17_2_2_1513621925998_12881">I know--it&#39;s a funny question, but it first occurred to me when I was getting my MFA at Vermont College, and my beautiful friend, Alicia, with her long, wavy golden hair (I mean, she&#39;s one of the most gorgeous women I have ever met)&#0160;went out on the town one night with some famous visiting poets, and when she came back, she was horrified. &quot;The poets!&quot;&#0160;she said. &quot;They were such creeps!&quot;&#0160;She added that she thought, after reading their work, that they would be &quot;like angels.&quot;&#0160;</p> <p>I told her how, before I went to church, I thought Christians were, well, Christian. &quot;Wow, you really are out of touch!&quot; she laughed. &quot;What planet did you grow up on?&quot;</p> <p>I have often wondered: how far we are from the message or story or image we send into the world? Of course, fiction writers aren&#39;t held up to the same standard as poets. We don&#39;t expect Stephen King to be a psycho-murderer.&#0160;But poets are often equated with the work they create. Maybe it&#39;s a problem of the the first-person in poetry. &#0160;Am I really the <em>I</em> in my confessional poems? Are you? Yes or no, we create a certain kind of expectation. After all, I think readers like to identify with writers in one way or another.&#0160;</p> <p>It&#39;s that kind of identification I wonder at. I wonder about it with cities, too. Because I think of places as stories, as personalities, and I travel to them with certain expectations.&#0160;</p> <p>When I was moving back to Charlottesville, the story I read about it was of a lovely, exciting, liberal University town. I was relieved to think it had changed so much from the Charlottesville I grew up in, which was a stunningly beautiful but racist, sleepy, southern town, much like the fictional Lessington, Virginia I wrote about in&#0160;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://cavankerrypress.org/product/miss-august/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1513804970355000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH5deAqES-gcspb6n2_am7P3Nwb9g" href="https://cavankerrypress.org/product/miss-august/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Miss August</a>. But then, last summer there was that horrific White Supremacist rally in Charlottesville. And since I&#39;ve moved, many have written me to ask what it&#39;s like here. Is Charlottesville a racist city? How is the town coping with what happened? Do people talk about the tragedy? I don&#39;t know the answers, but from what I have &#0160;read in the&#0160;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://www.charlottesvilleindependentreview.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1513804970355000&amp;usg=AFQjCNELnw2NH5LGSqbfN58oRDVqVWgEnA" href="https://www.charlottesvilleindependentreview.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Heaphy Report</a>, the story is both beyond upsetting and it&#39;s ongoing.</p> <p>In the aftermath of the event, many of the counter-protesters are being sued, and until a week ago, there were plans for another Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August of 2018. The &#0160;protesters, as one friend explained it,&#0160;have learned to tell a legally defensible story. They have figured out how to situate themselves on the right side of the law. And how to frame the story in their favor. &#0160;And our dear President has joined them in that effort.&#0160;</p> <p>Is that even possible? I am still just dumbstruck by the whole thing.</p> <p>But it brings me to my last point, or the last thing rambling around in my brain today . . .&#0160;</p> <p>In his recent article in the New Yorker,&#0160;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://ninandrews.squarespace.com/blog/Both%2520Haysom%2520and%2520Soering%2520were%2520writers%2520in%2520college,%2520and%2520both%2520have%2520become%2520successful%2520authors%2520who%2520have%2520published%2520from%2520prison.%2520That%2520haunted%2520me,%2520too%25E2%2580%2594partly%2520because%2520there%25E2%2580%2599s%2520an%2520inherent%2520slipperiness%2520involved%2520in%2520interviewing%2520people%2520who%2520know%2520how%2520stories%2520are%2520composed,%2520and%2520partly%2520because%2520the%2520coverup%2520itself%2520seemed%2520to%2520have%2520literary%2520attributes.%2520As%2520I%2520put%2520it%2520in%2520the%2520magazine%2520piece:%2520%25E2%2580%259CAt%2520least%2520one%2520of%2520the%2520people%2520implicated%2520has%2520been%2520hiding%2520the%2520truth%2520with%2520a%2520writer%25E2%2580%2599s%2520mind.%25E2%2580%259D&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1513804970355000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHEia_t6OQ1HQuhShwIZBcyWeSmhA" href="https://ninandrews.squarespace.com/blog/Both%20Haysom%20and%20Soering%20were%20writers%20in%20college,%20and%20both%20have%20become%20successful%20authors%20who%20have%20published%20from%20prison.%20That%20haunted%20me,%20too%E2%80%94partly%20because%20there%E2%80%99s%20an%20inherent%20slipperiness%20involved%20in%20interviewing%20people%20who%20know%20how%20stories%20are%20composed,%20and%20partly%20because%20the%20coverup%20itself%20seemed%20to%20have%20literary%20attributes.%20As%20I%20put%20it%20in%20the%20magazine%20piece:%20%E2%80%9CAt%20least%20one%20of%20the%20people%20implicated%20has%20been%20hiding%20the%20truth%20with%20a%20writer%E2%80%99s%20mind.%E2%80%9D" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Double Murder Case That Still Haunts Me</a>, Nathan Heller writes about a gruesome double-murder that happened in the 1980s in Lynchburg, an hour down the road from Charlottesville.&#0160; It was a murder that caught the attention of the public back in the &#39;80&#39;s, and that the short story writer,&#0160;Peter Taylor, and his wife, the poet, Eleanor Ross Taylor,&#0160;talked about at length when we visited with them that year. The murderers, Elizabeth Haysom and Jen Soering, were top UVA students and talented writers, which was why the Taylors were especially stunned by their story. Now, years later, a documentary has been made about the case. Everyone is still questioning what exactly took place.</p> <p>But it is the murderers&#39; ability as writers that causes Nathan Heller to question them. He writes:&#0160;</p> <p id="m_-4709661260002108257gmail-yui_3_17_2_2_1513621925998_12894"><em id="m_-4709661260002108257gmail-yui_3_17_2_2_1513621925998_12893">Both Haysom and Soering were writers in college, and both have become successful authors who have published from prison. That haunted me, too—partly because there’s an inherent slipperiness involved in interviewing people who know how stories are composed, and partly because the coverup itself seemed to have literary attributes. As I put it in the magazine piece: “At least one of the people implicated has been hiding the truth with a writer’s mind.&quot;</em></p> </div> <div class="yj6qo ajU">&#0160;</div>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c901719d970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-06-11T19:27:38Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c901719b970bHappy Birthday David! http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-06-11T19:27:38Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d28b9539970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Whose Birthday This Is" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d28b9539970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d28b9539970c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Whose Birthday This Is" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c9017177970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Someone Puts a Birthday Together" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c9017177970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c9017177970b-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Someone Puts a Birthday Together" /></a><br /><br /></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d28b9539970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Whose Birthday This Is" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d28b9539970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d28b9539970c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Whose Birthday This Is" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c9017177970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Someone Puts a Birthday Together" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c9017177970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c9017177970b-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Someone Puts a Birthday Together" /></a><br /><br /></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c8e6a4e1970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-30T15:31:46Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e6a4df970bGrace Cavalieri: Poet, Book Playwright, Radio Host, Reviewer, and Editor (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-30T15:31:46Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><em>This is the fifth in a series of blog posts I am doing this week to honor those whom I call star-makers, meaning those who help make others’ literary lives possible, and sometimes wonderful.&#0160;&#0160;I don&#39;t know of anyone who gives as much to other writers and poets as Grace Cavalieri. I am so looking forward to reading her next book, due out next&#0160;fall . . .</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270eea0970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="AWP_agcc" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270eea0970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270eea0970c-500wi" title="AWP_agcc" /></a><br /><br /><br />Every now and then I come across someone who does it all, and I think, <em>How does this woman sleep? </em>Grace Cavelieri is one of those people. Every few days I receive an email from her including a recent interview, podcast or feature on a poet or artist, or a set of book reviews, recently published in <em>The Washington Independent Review of Books</em>. I am just so grateful every time I hear from her. She is the embodiment of the gift horse that never stops giving. After all, there are so few good reviewers these days, and even fewer as dedicated as she is to promoting poetry as a part of her daily life.</p> <p>Recent reviews by Cavalieri from Washington Independent Review of Books can be found <a href="http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/reviewer/grace-cavalieri-2/">here</a>. Podcasts of her interviews, The Poet and the Poem” can be found <a href="https://www.loc.gov/poetry/media/poetpoem.html">here</a>.</p> <p><br /> Whatever Grace Cavalieri does, she does with brilliance--and great love. Whenever I read her work or hear her interviews, I feel briefly enlightened and uplifted. There is always a kind of laughter and/or delight&#0160;in her words, whether written or spoken. Not surprisingly,&#0160;her own poems are insightful, personal, deeply imagined, and entertaining. A&#0160;natural&#0160;playwright, she has turned some of her poems into plays. I think her beautiful poem, “Letters,” from her collection, <em>The Mandate of Heaven</em>, speaks of her particular gift—of how and perhaps why she writes. Cavalieri&#0160;is a poet who tells stories in verse that are the very stories that <em>we’re not finished with</em>.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>LETTERS</strong></p> <p>If you ask what bring us here,</p> <p>Staring out of our lives</p> <p>Like animals in high grass,</p> <p>I’d say it was what we had in common</p> <p>with the other—the hum of a song we</p> <p>believe in which can’t be heard,</p> <p>the sound of our own</p> <p>luminous bodies rising just behind the hill,</p> <p>the dream of a light which won’t go out,</p> <p>and a story we’re not finished with.</p> <p>We talk of things we cannot comprehend</p> <p>so that you’ll know about</p> <p>the inner and outer world which are the same.</p> <p>Someone has to be with us in this,</p> <p>and if you are, then,</p> <p>you know us best. And I mean all of us,</p> <p>the deer who leaves his marks behind him</p> <p>in the snow, the red fox moving through the woods.</p> <p>The same stream in them is in us too</p> <p>although we are the chosen ones who speak.</p> <p>Please tell me what you think cannot be sold</p> <p>And I will say that’s all there is:</p> <p>the pain in our lives</p> <p>. . . the thoughts we have . . .</p> <p>We bring these small seeds.</p> <p>Do what you can with them.</p> <p>What is found in this beleaguered</p> <p>and beautiful land is what we write of.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270f0f4970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Anna Nicole" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270f0f4970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270f0f4970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Anna Nicole" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>While some of her poems, like <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/54288">“Tomato Pies, 25 Cents” </a>tell of her Italian childhood and Trenton, New Jersey, others enter the imagined lives and dreams of others, lives as varied as Mary Wollstonecraft, an eighteenth century feminist, Anna Nicole, and the amorous residents of a nursing home. When reading Grace Cavalieri’s poems, I can sometimes see the beginnings of a dialog or drama, and the future of her poems as a play, as in this one about Anna Nicole:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NOTES FROM A DISTANT GLACIER</strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong></p> <p><strong>Interviewer: </strong><em>Do you want to be someone of worth?</em></p> <p><em>Or do you want to be famous?</em></p> <p><strong>Designer: </strong><em>if they photograph you nude,</em></p> <p><em>It’s called ART.</em></p> <p><strong>Critic: </strong><em>They should project her on the wall, the one WAAY far behind us.</em></p> <p><strong>Trainer: </strong><em>In life there can be only one winner.</em></p> <p><strong>Mother:</strong><em> Would you please sit like a normal person?</em></p> <p><strong>Manager:</strong><em> Take a pill, for God’s sake - any pill. Just do it.</em></p> <p><strong>Doctor:</strong><em> No medicine can make you stop feeling.</em></p> <p><strong>Lawyer: </strong><em>Don’t even think about it, Anna,</em></p> <p><em>Death doesn’t care about you. You owe it to the world to make it pretty.</em></p> <p><strong>Director: </strong><em>Give them heart, Give them breast.</em></p> <p><strong>Lover: </strong><em>Being a blonde beauty doesn’t make you a whore, necessarily.</em></p> <p><em>Anna looks out the window.</em></p> <p><em>She sees the pink azalea outside. So pretty. That color.</em></p> <p><em>So perfect. It must be fake.</em></p> <p>And then there is this poem from the Anna Nicole series. I love how Grace captures the very aura of Anna Nicole:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>ANNA’S ESTATE</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>At the ½ star hotel</p> <p>the lower lip is painted bigger, to match</p> <p>the dreams of being a star.</p> <p>She blessed the lumpy beds, bought her own silk sheets.</p> <p>This was before the moral issues, the legal issues,</p> <p>the spirit of the law, the letter of the law,</p> <p>the causes of death, junkies, drug addicts,</p> <p>probable criminal cause, bodies exhumed,</p> <p>frozen sperm, mystery sons,</p> <p>living in sorrow, wrongful death,</p> <p>undue influences.</p> <p>Before the opalescent and oceans</p> <p>where she could never find the truth in things,</p> <p>where she wanted a photo album so bad,</p> <p>so she wouldn’t die without memories--</p> <p>one day, standing at the free continental breakfast</p> <p>dragging her sleeve in the jelly,</p> <p>someone walked by, touching her waist like a prayer,</p> <p>like an enfranchisement,</p> <p>and she was on her way,</p> <p>in a dress made for someone much smaller,</p> <p>trusting a stranger because he said,</p> <p><em>The Good Lord can’t see what happens at Hollywood.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Very different in temperament are Cavaleiri’s poems about Mary Wollstonecraft such as&#0160;this one:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>I CAN THINK OF FAR WORSE THINGS</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Than to be a governess-</p> <p>saying “that’s that” and hustling children</p> <p>To the bath-</p> <p>Oh yes, far worse things…</p> <p>Like prostitution, for example,</p> <p>Or embroidering, for that matter…</p> <p>Or marrying someone I do not love.</p> <p>And although I’ve never had the pox,</p> <p>And one eyelid droops a little,</p> <p>I am not ugly. If I lack sparkle</p> <p>It’s just because</p> <p>There’s such a narrow light in this room.</p> <p>Do people think I should be a squirrel or a rabbit?</p> <p>In the shed eating wood? Unworthy of my work?</p> <p>No, with twelve guineas saved</p> <p>One could start her own school,</p> <p>Or by some self respect,</p> <p>Or even start a dowry.</p> <p>If I have to work for people whose</p> <p>Fortune was not made in this lifetime,</p> <p>Then I will tend to them sweetly,</p> <p>Saving this beautiful handwriting for night.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Clearly, whatever series she is working on, Cavalieri’s poems are rich in detail and enchantment.</p> <p>So I thought I’d ask Grace a few questions:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <ol> <li>Grace, first of all, how do you do it? How do you have time? You are also a mother and grandmother and a cook and . . . ??</li> </ol> <p>I &#0160;have a magic wand. I can expand time whenever I love something. Your contacting me gives me so much good energy. It was 3pm before. Now it’s 2:45. See what a difference a happy event makes!</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;2. I have this idea that you were born writing poetry. Tell me how you became a poet.</p> <p>I have interviewed about 3,000 poets in 40 years and almost everyone said “You won’t believe this but I wrote as a child” I say “NO. Really?” It’s true, I believe all poets come out wired that way and see the world through language, and the edge of words rather than the words themselves. A neurological disorder perhaps.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;3. How does a poem come to you?</p> <p>It starts with a feeling, then there are words. I rely on my nighttime mind a lot because who could make up stuff like that? I also like to play with language randomly and let it lead me “to the heart” as Jane Hirschfield says. I don’t mind memory and I often enter the building of my life to go up and down the elevator, stopping on floors to see what happened—turning that to narrative.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 4. Are currently you working on a new series of poems or a play? And how does a poem become a play?</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e6a3e0970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Millie&#39;s Sunshine" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e6a3e0970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e6a3e0970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Millie&#39;s Sunshine" /></a>Good question. As an example, I have 3 specific books of poems: one on Anna Nicole Smith, one on Mary Wollstonecraft, one on old folks at “Pinecrest Rest Haven.” After the characters were so alive, there was nothing to do with them but put them on stage and let them slug it out. They would not go away. My husband said he never knew who was coming down for breakfast any one day: an 18<sup>th</sup> century feminist, a playboy bunny, or an ex-slave quiltmaker.</p> <p>&#0160;My new play is <em>Millie’s Sunshine Tiki Villas</em>. I’m trying to transform it from my novella-in-verse by that title. But it wants to go nowhere in a hurry.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160;5. Tell me about one of your favorite interviews? Can I have any quotes from an interview? Links?</p> <p>Allen Ginsberg was so rude. He’d been marching all night in 1976 to protest something in DC and had no sleep and when I got him on tape he hammered everything I said and I stopped the interview and said “who would want to be with you for an hour?” And he did a 180, we became friends finally. Louise Gluck (my favorite!) stopped half way through and said she was through. She was tired, but I still had 30 minutes to fill so fortunately I remembered a book we hadn’t mentioned and we went on. A.R. Ammons arrived for an hour interview with NO BOOKS. Fortunately I had some of his. There were countless moments of breathlessness in the past 40 years.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 6. How did you start working with Didi Menendez?</p> <p>A friend was published in MiPOesias years and years ago. So I sent in some work. She’s my cultural hero and I cannot say enough about what she’s done/ and been/ as a cutting edge curator of art in America. She mentioned making books (Casa Menendez Press;) and then published five of mine. She inspires me to give up fear. BE DIDI, I say to myself every night. Just change the world. No problem. Be DiDi.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 7. And the Library of Congress?</p> <p>I was core staff co-founding WPFW-FM in DC where poetry was really the news that stays news. My show “The Poet and the Poem” was “live” for 20 years.</p> <p>As a writer, I knew folks at the LOC Poetry Office and through that office, and its Public Relations, “The Poet and the Poem” was contracted with a handshake to run nationally*(*If I could find the funding. The Witter Bynner FDN came through and has stayed for 20 years.) It was agreed that if I could sustain the show, the Library would offer soft services—a room in THE HOUSE OF MEMORY. And I cherish every marble step there. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 8. I’d love to close with another poem or an excerpt of your choice.</p> <p>(From an early book Why<em> I Cannot Take A Lover</em>, Washington Writer’s Publishing House, 1976.)</p> <p><strong>Don’t Undersell Yourself</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Consider the brown cow</p> <p>Eating green grass</p> <p>Giving white milk.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0989e5c1970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Grace" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0989e5c1970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0989e5c1970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Grace" /></a></em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Grace Cavalieri’s new book is WITH (Somondoco Press 2016.) She’s the author of several books and produced plays. The most recent play, “Anna Nicole: Blonde Glory.” (Theatre for the New City, NYC 2012.) She celebrates 40 years on public radio with “The Poet and The Poem” now recorded at The Library of Congress. She’s taught at Antioch College and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She’s the founder of two poetry presses in DC, still thriving, and is presently the poetry columnist for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Cavalieri was awarded the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from WASH INDEP REVIEW. She received the George Garrett Award from AWP for Service to literature; two Allen Ginsberg Awards ; Paterson Award; Bordighera Poetry Prize; and the inaugural Columbia Award; A Pen Fiction Award; plus CPB’s Silver Medal. She was married to the late sculptor Kenneth Flynn. They had 4 children 4 grandchildren; and now there’s a new greatgrandchild.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews is the author of several poetry books, most recently Our Lady of the Orgasm. Her next collection, Miss August, is due out in a few weeks. Her website is <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">Ninandrews.com</a></em></p> <p><em>This is the fifth in a series of blog posts I am doing this week to honor those whom I call star-makers, meaning those who help make others’ literary lives possible, and sometimes wonderful.&#0160;&#0160;I don&#39;t know of anyone who gives as much to other writers and poets as Grace Cavalieri. I am so looking forward to reading her next book, due out next&#0160;fall . . .</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270eea0970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="AWP_agcc" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270eea0970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270eea0970c-500wi" title="AWP_agcc" /></a><br /><br /><br />Every now and then I come across someone who does it all, and I think, <em>How does this woman sleep? </em>Grace Cavelieri is one of those people. Every few days I receive an email from her including a recent interview, podcast or feature on a poet or artist, or a set of book reviews, recently published in <em>The Washington Independent Review of Books</em>. I am just so grateful every time I hear from her. She is the embodiment of the gift horse that never stops giving. After all, there are so few good reviewers these days, and even fewer as dedicated as she is to promoting poetry as a part of her daily life.</p> <p>Recent reviews by Cavalieri from Washington Independent Review of Books can be found <a href="http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/reviewer/grace-cavalieri-2/">here</a>. Podcasts of her interviews, The Poet and the Poem” can be found <a href="https://www.loc.gov/poetry/media/poetpoem.html">here</a>.</p> <p><br /> Whatever Grace Cavalieri does, she does with brilliance--and great love. Whenever I read her work or hear her interviews, I feel briefly enlightened and uplifted. There is always a kind of laughter and/or delight&#0160;in her words, whether written or spoken. Not surprisingly,&#0160;her own poems are insightful, personal, deeply imagined, and entertaining. A&#0160;natural&#0160;playwright, she has turned some of her poems into plays. I think her beautiful poem, “Letters,” from her collection, <em>The Mandate of Heaven</em>, speaks of her particular gift—of how and perhaps why she writes. Cavalieri&#0160;is a poet who tells stories in verse that are the very stories that <em>we’re not finished with</em>.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>LETTERS</strong></p> <p>If you ask what bring us here,</p> <p>Staring out of our lives</p> <p>Like animals in high grass,</p> <p>I’d say it was what we had in common</p> <p>with the other—the hum of a song we</p> <p>believe in which can’t be heard,</p> <p>the sound of our own</p> <p>luminous bodies rising just behind the hill,</p> <p>the dream of a light which won’t go out,</p> <p>and a story we’re not finished with.</p> <p>We talk of things we cannot comprehend</p> <p>so that you’ll know about</p> <p>the inner and outer world which are the same.</p> <p>Someone has to be with us in this,</p> <p>and if you are, then,</p> <p>you know us best. And I mean all of us,</p> <p>the deer who leaves his marks behind him</p> <p>in the snow, the red fox moving through the woods.</p> <p>The same stream in them is in us too</p> <p>although we are the chosen ones who speak.</p> <p>Please tell me what you think cannot be sold</p> <p>And I will say that’s all there is:</p> <p>the pain in our lives</p> <p>. . . the thoughts we have . . .</p> <p>We bring these small seeds.</p> <p>Do what you can with them.</p> <p>What is found in this beleaguered</p> <p>and beautiful land is what we write of.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270f0f4970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Anna Nicole" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270f0f4970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d270f0f4970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Anna Nicole" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>While some of her poems, like <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/54288">“Tomato Pies, 25 Cents” </a>tell of her Italian childhood and Trenton, New Jersey, others enter the imagined lives and dreams of others, lives as varied as Mary Wollstonecraft, an eighteenth century feminist, Anna Nicole, and the amorous residents of a nursing home. When reading Grace Cavalieri’s poems, I can sometimes see the beginnings of a dialog or drama, and the future of her poems as a play, as in this one about Anna Nicole:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NOTES FROM A DISTANT GLACIER</strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong></p> <p><strong>Interviewer: </strong><em>Do you want to be someone of worth?</em></p> <p><em>Or do you want to be famous?</em></p> <p><strong>Designer: </strong><em>if they photograph you nude,</em></p> <p><em>It’s called ART.</em></p> <p><strong>Critic: </strong><em>They should project her on the wall, the one WAAY far behind us.</em></p> <p><strong>Trainer: </strong><em>In life there can be only one winner.</em></p> <p><strong>Mother:</strong><em> Would you please sit like a normal person?</em></p> <p><strong>Manager:</strong><em> Take a pill, for God’s sake - any pill. Just do it.</em></p> <p><strong>Doctor:</strong><em> No medicine can make you stop feeling.</em></p> <p><strong>Lawyer: </strong><em>Don’t even think about it, Anna,</em></p> <p><em>Death doesn’t care about you. You owe it to the world to make it pretty.</em></p> <p><strong>Director: </strong><em>Give them heart, Give them breast.</em></p> <p><strong>Lover: </strong><em>Being a blonde beauty doesn’t make you a whore, necessarily.</em></p> <p><em>Anna looks out the window.</em></p> <p><em>She sees the pink azalea outside. So pretty. That color.</em></p> <p><em>So perfect. It must be fake.</em></p> <p>And then there is this poem from the Anna Nicole series. I love how Grace captures the very aura of Anna Nicole:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>ANNA’S ESTATE</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>At the ½ star hotel</p> <p>the lower lip is painted bigger, to match</p> <p>the dreams of being a star.</p> <p>She blessed the lumpy beds, bought her own silk sheets.</p> <p>This was before the moral issues, the legal issues,</p> <p>the spirit of the law, the letter of the law,</p> <p>the causes of death, junkies, drug addicts,</p> <p>probable criminal cause, bodies exhumed,</p> <p>frozen sperm, mystery sons,</p> <p>living in sorrow, wrongful death,</p> <p>undue influences.</p> <p>Before the opalescent and oceans</p> <p>where she could never find the truth in things,</p> <p>where she wanted a photo album so bad,</p> <p>so she wouldn’t die without memories--</p> <p>one day, standing at the free continental breakfast</p> <p>dragging her sleeve in the jelly,</p> <p>someone walked by, touching her waist like a prayer,</p> <p>like an enfranchisement,</p> <p>and she was on her way,</p> <p>in a dress made for someone much smaller,</p> <p>trusting a stranger because he said,</p> <p><em>The Good Lord can’t see what happens at Hollywood.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Very different in temperament are Cavaleiri’s poems about Mary Wollstonecraft such as&#0160;this one:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>I CAN THINK OF FAR WORSE THINGS</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Than to be a governess-</p> <p>saying “that’s that” and hustling children</p> <p>To the bath-</p> <p>Oh yes, far worse things…</p> <p>Like prostitution, for example,</p> <p>Or embroidering, for that matter…</p> <p>Or marrying someone I do not love.</p> <p>And although I’ve never had the pox,</p> <p>And one eyelid droops a little,</p> <p>I am not ugly. If I lack sparkle</p> <p>It’s just because</p> <p>There’s such a narrow light in this room.</p> <p>Do people think I should be a squirrel or a rabbit?</p> <p>In the shed eating wood? Unworthy of my work?</p> <p>No, with twelve guineas saved</p> <p>One could start her own school,</p> <p>Or by some self respect,</p> <p>Or even start a dowry.</p> <p>If I have to work for people whose</p> <p>Fortune was not made in this lifetime,</p> <p>Then I will tend to them sweetly,</p> <p>Saving this beautiful handwriting for night.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Clearly, whatever series she is working on, Cavalieri’s poems are rich in detail and enchantment.</p> <p>So I thought I’d ask Grace a few questions:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <ol> <li>Grace, first of all, how do you do it? How do you have time? You are also a mother and grandmother and a cook and . . . ??</li> </ol> <p>I &#0160;have a magic wand. I can expand time whenever I love something. Your contacting me gives me so much good energy. It was 3pm before. Now it’s 2:45. See what a difference a happy event makes!</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;2. I have this idea that you were born writing poetry. Tell me how you became a poet.</p> <p>I have interviewed about 3,000 poets in 40 years and almost everyone said “You won’t believe this but I wrote as a child” I say “NO. Really?” It’s true, I believe all poets come out wired that way and see the world through language, and the edge of words rather than the words themselves. A neurological disorder perhaps.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;3. How does a poem come to you?</p> <p>It starts with a feeling, then there are words. I rely on my nighttime mind a lot because who could make up stuff like that? I also like to play with language randomly and let it lead me “to the heart” as Jane Hirschfield says. I don’t mind memory and I often enter the building of my life to go up and down the elevator, stopping on floors to see what happened—turning that to narrative.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 4. Are currently you working on a new series of poems or a play? And how does a poem become a play?</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e6a3e0970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Millie&#39;s Sunshine" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e6a3e0970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e6a3e0970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Millie&#39;s Sunshine" /></a>Good question. As an example, I have 3 specific books of poems: one on Anna Nicole Smith, one on Mary Wollstonecraft, one on old folks at “Pinecrest Rest Haven.” After the characters were so alive, there was nothing to do with them but put them on stage and let them slug it out. They would not go away. My husband said he never knew who was coming down for breakfast any one day: an 18<sup>th</sup> century feminist, a playboy bunny, or an ex-slave quiltmaker.</p> <p>&#0160;My new play is <em>Millie’s Sunshine Tiki Villas</em>. I’m trying to transform it from my novella-in-verse by that title. But it wants to go nowhere in a hurry.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160;5. Tell me about one of your favorite interviews? Can I have any quotes from an interview? Links?</p> <p>Allen Ginsberg was so rude. He’d been marching all night in 1976 to protest something in DC and had no sleep and when I got him on tape he hammered everything I said and I stopped the interview and said “who would want to be with you for an hour?” And he did a 180, we became friends finally. Louise Gluck (my favorite!) stopped half way through and said she was through. She was tired, but I still had 30 minutes to fill so fortunately I remembered a book we hadn’t mentioned and we went on. A.R. Ammons arrived for an hour interview with NO BOOKS. Fortunately I had some of his. There were countless moments of breathlessness in the past 40 years.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 6. How did you start working with Didi Menendez?</p> <p>A friend was published in MiPOesias years and years ago. So I sent in some work. She’s my cultural hero and I cannot say enough about what she’s done/ and been/ as a cutting edge curator of art in America. She mentioned making books (Casa Menendez Press;) and then published five of mine. She inspires me to give up fear. BE DIDI, I say to myself every night. Just change the world. No problem. Be DiDi.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 7. And the Library of Congress?</p> <p>I was core staff co-founding WPFW-FM in DC where poetry was really the news that stays news. My show “The Poet and the Poem” was “live” for 20 years.</p> <p>As a writer, I knew folks at the LOC Poetry Office and through that office, and its Public Relations, “The Poet and the Poem” was contracted with a handshake to run nationally*(*If I could find the funding. The Witter Bynner FDN came through and has stayed for 20 years.) It was agreed that if I could sustain the show, the Library would offer soft services—a room in THE HOUSE OF MEMORY. And I cherish every marble step there. &#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 8. I’d love to close with another poem or an excerpt of your choice.</p> <p>(From an early book Why<em> I Cannot Take A Lover</em>, Washington Writer’s Publishing House, 1976.)</p> <p><strong>Don’t Undersell Yourself</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Consider the brown cow</p> <p>Eating green grass</p> <p>Giving white milk.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0989e5c1970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Grace" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0989e5c1970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0989e5c1970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Grace" /></a></em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Grace Cavalieri’s new book is WITH (Somondoco Press 2016.) She’s the author of several books and produced plays. The most recent play, “Anna Nicole: Blonde Glory.” (Theatre for the New City, NYC 2012.) She celebrates 40 years on public radio with “The Poet and The Poem” now recorded at The Library of Congress. She’s taught at Antioch College and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She’s the founder of two poetry presses in DC, still thriving, and is presently the poetry columnist for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Cavalieri was awarded the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from WASH INDEP REVIEW. She received the George Garrett Award from AWP for Service to literature; two Allen Ginsberg Awards ; Paterson Award; Bordighera Poetry Prize; and the inaugural Columbia Award; A Pen Fiction Award; plus CPB’s Silver Medal. She was married to the late sculptor Kenneth Flynn. They had 4 children 4 grandchildren; and now there’s a new greatgrandchild.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews is the author of several poetry books, most recently Our Lady of the Orgasm. Her next collection, Miss August, is due out in a few weeks. Her website is <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">Ninandrews.com</a></em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d2706ff4970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-29T15:45:51Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706ff0970cMarc Vincenz, Editor, Translator, Poet & Book Designer (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-29T15:45:51Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><em>This is the fourth in a series of blog posts I am doing this week to honor those who help make others’ literary lives possible, and sometimes even wonderful. Yesterday I talked about Danny Lawless, the editor of Plume.&#0160;</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb098946f5970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Cover Marc book" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb098946f5970d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb098946f5970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Cover Marc book" /></a></p> <p>Danny Lawless’s partner in crime, co-editor, Marc Vincenz, is nothing short of a literary phenomenon. Born in Hong Kong to British-Swiss parents, he has lived in so many countries and languages, I wonder what language he dreams in. And which poets from around the world have been his primary influences. What language holds his music?</p> <p>A translator of many German-language poets, his translation of Klaus Merz&#39;s collection, <em>Unexpected Development,</em> was a finalist for the 2015 Cliff Becker Book Translation Prize and is forthcoming from White Pine Press next year.</p> <p>As a poet, not surprisingly, he is a man of many voices. His poems have a mythic and otherworldly quality, and seem to travel to other realms, far beyond expected and easily inhabited definitions. One senses mystical influences, as if he is seeking nothing less than to capture “the song of the world” or “the rapture of being alive,” in spite of inherent dualities. Yet, there is something both spellbinding and intimate in his work. He is also a deeply relevant and committed poet, with poems addressing the environmental demise of our planet. Whether ecstatic or despairing, witty or wild, his poems have a unique lyricism and vision.</p> <p>His poem, “Damaged Music,” for example, addresses both his environmental concerns and his spiritual longing.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong> <br />Damaged Music</strong></p> <p>Ache in the old wisdom tooth,</p> <p>an experience of self-fulfilling</p> <p>prophecy, a damaged music</p> <p>and acres of elephant bones.</p> <p>Here we go: Another evening</p> <p>of cold fiction, the starved</p> <p>ghosts of ancient citadels.</p> <p>I wish I might breathe sparrows</p> <p>into the sky or wind-weather</p> <p>the wild grass. I yearn</p> <p>for the smell of day</p> <p>in spring, for a language</p> <p>without words. May I</p> <p>one day climb out</p> <p>of that honeycomb of life</p> <p>and enter another world</p> <p>where there are no numbers</p> <p>to contain all of this, and</p> <p>the smooth, bloody</p> <p>thickness of oil flows</p> <p>into the smut</p> <p>of an ever-endless sky.</p> <p>One of my favorite&#0160;Marc Vincenz poems&#0160;is this beautiful poem, “Cassandra Knows How to Die of Beauty” in which he echoes Emily Dickinson:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Cassandra Knows How to Die of Beauty</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Who knows</p> <p>what it’s like to be dead</p> <p>when we incessantly chatter</p> <p>between rooms?</p> <p>The name, love,</p> <p>is crossed out.</p> <p>Oh to write</p> <p>letter after letter</p> <p>belaboring</p> <p>a fruitless cause.</p> <p>A letter, of course,</p> <p>seems like immortality.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>So I thought I&#39;d ask Marc a few questions.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <ol> <li>Marc, I wondered if you would answer some of my early questions, such as: what language do you dream in? What poets have influenced you?</li> </ol> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e5fe0b970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Sound of Bees" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e5fe0b970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e5fe0b970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Sound of Bees" /></a>The language of dreams. A good question, Nin. I’m not sure; do we dream in a specific language? Certainly I have had conversations in my dreams in several languages: English, German, Spanish, Chinese and a smattering of poor Icelandic, but whether the dream is “narrated” or “set” in any specific language, I don’t think I can really be sure. Every once in a while, a poem or the title of a poem emerges from a dream. For that reason I keep a notepad on my bedside table; I have been known to wake up with a jolt in the middle of a night and scribble down the residue of what still lingers. Recently this occurred with a poem about my father, “My Father’s Familiar.” It was probably three o’clock in the morning, and the entire poem poured onto the page as if it had been written somewhere else long ago. The poem materialized in English. My sense is that my dreams are multilingual, but that the root language is English—which is the language I speak with my mother and the language I mostly think in.</p> <p>I am an avid reader of poetry. I probably spend over three hours every day reading poems. Normally, I have many books of poetry going at the same time. At this moment, I am reading Merwin’s translation of Dante’s <em>Purgatorio</em>; Terese Svoboda’s first book of poems, <em>Laughing Africa</em>; Campbell McGrath’s <em>XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century</em>; Hank Lazer’s recent book, <em>Poems Hidden in Plain View</em>; Hertha Kräftner’s <em>Kühle Sterne</em> (<em>Chilling Stars</em>); Kevin Prufer’s <em>Churches</em>; Richard Kenny’s <em>The Invention of Zero</em> (a hell of a wild ride); William Mathew’s <em>Selected Poems</em>; <em>Women Poets of China</em>, translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung; and I just got my copy of Bill Knott’s <em>Selected Poems</em> (edited by the late Tom Lux) … and that’s not to mention the whole slew of poems I read from submissions, manuscripts selected for publication, the translations I am working on, or new candidates I am seeking out. Right now I am translating Klaus Merz’s selected poems (1963–2016), <em>An Audible Blue</em>. I am awash in poetic voices. In some way, they all have influenced me.</p> <p>Here are some I have soft spots for: Tomas Tranströmer, Anna Akhmatova, Emily Dickinson, D. H. Lawrence, Nellie Sachs, Eugenio Montale, Yves Bonnefoy, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Robinson Jeffers, Reginald Shepherd, James Wright, Zbignew Herbert, W. B. Yeats, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens, Milosz, Novalis, Olav H. Hauge, Thoreau, Heraclitus and of course, Shakespeare and Goethe.</p> <ol start="2"> <li>How many languages were spoken in your childhood?</li> </ol> <p>I was brought up in a household that spoke three main languages: English, German and Rhetoromanish. On top of that, since early childhood (having been born in Hong Kong), I had the sounds of Cantonese and Mandarin clanking in my head. As a small child in the 1960s and ’70s, I played and scrapped with the children of the market-stall owners of Hong Kong’s Stanley Market and spoke fluent Cantonese. But my father worked with people from all over the world, and thus I grew up in a home that never had less than five languages careering around at any one time.</p> <ol start="3"> <li>When did you decide to become a poet?</li> </ol> <p>My first literary mentor as an undergrad at Duke University was Reynolds Price. He was constantly telling me that I might run aground on the same shores that William Blake was beached—with my mystical language and magical approach to verse. Reynolds preached complete clarity, and was mostly lauded for it (although he is predominately known for his fiction). And yet, Reynolds, aside from being a poet, fiction writer, essayist and novelist, was also a Milton scholar. Reynolds noted that T. S. Eliot himself famously criticized Milton’s syntax, saying it was “dictated by a demand for verbal music, instead of any demand of sense.” A little strange coming from the author of that oh-so-modernist <em>The Waste Land</em>. I am certain that Reynolds was delighted with this dichotomy. It may have been that fine line between syntax and sense that urged me to become a writer of poems. After I left Duke, I had made my decision. Of course, it took me many years and several incarnations before I began sending them out into the world, shepherding them between the covers of books.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <ol start="4"> <li>Tell me about the art of translations. I am certain you don’t translate as they say Bly did, with a bilingual dictionary. And what inspired you to become a translator?</li> </ol> <p><br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706c85970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Lifelong Bird Migration Cover" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706c85970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706c85970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Lifelong Bird Migration Cover" /></a>Originally I was satisfied with simply working on my own poetry—and fiction (my first novella is coming out soon from Spuyten Duvil Press), yet from time to time, these periods of silence would arise, when somehow I had over-saturated myself in my own imagined worlds. These periods sometimes occur when I have labored over one book or set of poems for so long that I need a complete change of scenery. The craft of translating helps me achieve a semblance of perspective on my own work. Anyway, it was during one of these phases when I was standing in the German Literature section of the Reykjavik Library and stumbled upon the work of the Swiss poet Erika Burkart. I began translating her book, <em>Geheimbrief</em> into English (it was recently released by Cervena Barva Press as <em>Secret Letter</em>) almost immediately, and without any particular goal in mind. After some months, I realized I had translated the whole book. Since then—almost nine years ago now, literary translation has become a part of my daily routine.</p> <p>When I translate poetry from the German, my initial approach is much as I would own work: a rough sketch, an impression, a sense of how that voice on the page quivers. I attempt to crystalize the tone, the cadence, the rhythm and then the intent in English. All this is done almost fleetingly, without (after the initial reading) specifically referring back to the original. I go through this process, editing and refining for several rounds. It is only much later, when I have a working draft in English in my hands that I begin to compare both texts side-by-side. Sometimes, I will have diverged significantly from the root text; yet, it is precisely in these moments of divergence that I might discover the unique vibrations of the original. Once again, as with writing my own work, I need to return again and again.</p> <p>I have had the good fortune also of working with a number of the poets I translate, listening together to find that frequency that brings their German into English. Their ears and eyes have also helped me meet these obstacles, and to realize that it is often in the most “untranslatable” passages that the magic may be found.</p> <ol start="5"> <li>Could we have a poem from <em>Unexpected Development</em>? And could you say a few words about Klaus Merz?</li> </ol> <p>With pleasure. Here’s “In the Course of Time”:</p> <p>The dignity of travel</p> <p>is seriously remiss,</p> <p>establishes my companion:</p> <p>We hurtle about in high-capacity boxcars</p> <p>straight through time, ear-</p> <p>marked, industrious, hunched over. And</p> <p>behind the Potemkin</p> <p>passengers, the world</p> <p>ceaselessly scatters.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Klaus’s work is exceedingly condensed and concise. Initially, it appears to be sparse and, perhaps a little simple, yet on second glance it hits you, somehow resonating outside the page. When it sinks it, and sometimes it takes a few moments, you never quite walk the same—at least that’s my experience of it. Klaus’s poems are sound bites, intimate moments, distilled flashes of insight, and, for the most part, no more than five lines; you get a whiff of Ancients having walked here. It’s almost as if his work comes directly out of the Japanese haiku tradition. I think it has something to do with the Zen majesty of the Swiss alpine landscapes.</p> <p>Although surely first and foremost a poet, Klaus is also a prize-winning fiction writer. His novella, <em>Jakob schläft</em> (<em>Jacob Asleep</em>), is, as literary fiction goes, a German-language bestseller. It was very recently published in English as part of a collection of three novellas by Seagull Books, <em>Stigmata of Bliss</em> (beautifully translated by Tess Lewis). <em>Unexpected Development</em> is the second collection of Klaus’s I have translated. The first was <em>Out of the Dust</em> (Spuyten Duyvil, 2014), and right now, I am working on a third book of translations, Klaus’s selected poems (1963–2016), <em>An Audible Blue</em>.</p> <ol start="6"> <li>How does the poetry world in Germany compare to that of the U.S.?</li> </ol> <p>Most of the German-language poets I have translated are Swiss. As Swiss poet and publisher Markus Bundi has told me, “You can count the readers of poetry in Switzerland in a book of matches.” In Switzerland there are virtually no literary journals—online or otherwise. Much of the promotion of the books and the literary events surrounding poetry is in the hands of the “literature houses”—and the likelihood that you will get invited to read or debate poetical works boils down to the cred and connections of your publisher.</p> <p>The poets I know in Switzerland who get their poetry collections published by higher-profile literary presses do so because they also write fiction. Basically, it is understood that if you want to publish your poetry, you had better deliver the occasional novel to make it worthwhile for the publisher. Today, in the German-language literary world, you find almost no poetry-only authors. And yes, in Germany, larger presses like Suhrkamp Verlag do release the occasional book of poetry—but these are few and far between, little literary prestige items to hold up to that flickering candle for posterity.</p> <p>There is much to say on this subject—which we don’t have time and space for here. Germany, Switzerland and Austria, although catering to the same language audience, each have their little anomalies. Of the three countries, Austria, with its well-developed grant and stipend system, is probably the most supportive of individual artists. Basically, with the exception of a handful of small presses, few publishers are willing to take risks on poetry these days. To survive on poetry—at the very least, to create the semblance of a poetic career (in the U.S., there is still the “option” of the academic path) is a virtual impossibility in the German-language literary world.</p> <ol start="7"> <li>You have a new book coming out … Could you say a few words about it? Maybe post a poem here from that collection?</li> </ol> <p>Well, last December, Ampersand Books released a limited-edition illustrated&#0160;chapbook of my long poem, Sibylline. Spuyten Duyvil is just about to release my translation of Jürg Amann’s last collection of poetry,&#0160;<em>Lifelong Bird Migration</em>, but what I have been working on most recently—as yet unfinished—is a collection of my own work, <em>The Syndicate of Water and Light</em>. Here’s one from that collection-in-progress:</p> <p><strong> <br />A Final Gathering</strong></p> <p>Filling up stolen time</p> <p>with bids and</p> <p>deceptions, with</p> <p>an evening sky</p> <p>flowing into</p> <p>the house—</p> <p>it is lovely</p> <p>to see</p> <p>above the city</p> <p>in the flight</p> <p>of the snow geese,</p> <p>valor surpasses</p> <p>honorable exile—</p> <p>still, the party continues</p> <p>and the streetnoise</p> <p>winds down,</p> <p>beneath the sniffles</p> <p>and the coughs and</p> <p>that faint voice enduring</p> <p>murky suspicions.</p> <p>I might be thinking</p> <p>we are divided</p> <p>like thieves, when</p> <p>a trembling pre-</p> <p>monition that things</p> <p>are void</p> <p>of substance, suddenly</p> <p>washes over me.</p> <ol start="8"> <li>How did you and Danny begin working together?</li> </ol> <p>Danny was introduced to me by the prolific translator and poet, Alex Cigale, whose translation of the Russian absurdist poet Daniil Kharms was just released by Northwestern University Press. Danny and I struck up a friendship quickly, realizing that our poetic tastes mirrored each other. In 2013, MadHat Press joined forces with <em>Plume</em> to begin publishing the <em>Plume </em>poetry anthology. Danny also invited me to join his editorial team at <em>Plume </em>online. Since then, aside from publishing the anthology, we launched a new imprint at MadHat Press, Plume Editions, which, among other things, now also publishes single-author poetry chapbooks and collections—and soon, translations too. Plume Editions recently released a chapbook by W. S. Di Piero, <em>The Man on the Water</em>; but has many new books lined up for release, including full collections by Jeff Friedman, Chris Buckley, Sally Bliumis-Dunn, JT Barbarese and Jennifer O’Grady.</p> <ol start="9"> <li>You also design the book covers for MadHat. Could you talk about the designing process? And maybe show two or three of your recent covers?</li> </ol> <p>In a way, the cover designing process is a form of translation. More often than not, I’ll let the books sink in, reflect, reflect again—and then, all of a sudden an image will arrive in my mind. For example: fog on a beach, or a house reflected in a flowing river, or a lunar landscape, or … anyway, you get the idea. It is very much an artistic process—finding the image that fits, then—the typography that sinks in or soars out of the visual reflections of the book. Over the years, I have compiled an archive of my own photos, doodles, paintings, visuals captured on the fly. I often reach into my pot to see if something fits what I have in my mind’s eye. If not, I’ll create an image from scratch. For example the cover image for Michael Anania’s newest collection, <em>Continuous Showings</em> (MadHat Press, 2017) is based on a photo that I took in Varanasi, India; Matt Babcock’s new book, <em>Strange Terrain</em> (MadHat, 2017) features a photo that I took in southwestern Iceland.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e74970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Man on the Water Cover" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e74970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e74970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Man on the Water Cover" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e76970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Man on the Water Cover" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e76970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e76970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Man on the Water Cover" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e78970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Man on the Water Cover" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e78970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e78970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Man on the Water Cover" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e45970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Marc_photo_hat" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e45970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e45970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Marc_photo_hat" /></a></em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Born in Hong Kong to British-Swiss parents, Marc Vincenz is the author of eight collections of poetry and several chapbooks. Vincenz is also the translator of many French-, Romanian- and German-language poets, including the Herman Hesse Prize winner Klaus Merz, Erika Burkart, Alexander Xaver Gwerder, Robert Walser, Ion Monoran. Jacques Chessex, and Jürg Amann. He has published eleven collections of translations. His translation of Klaus Merz&#39;s collection, Unexpected Development, was a finalist for the 2015 Cliff Becker Book Translation Prize and is forthcoming from White Pine Press. Vincenz has received many grants from the Swiss Arts Council and a fellowship from the Literary Colloquium Berlin. His own work has been translated into German, Russian, Romanian, French, Icelandic, Georgian and Chinese; Bucharest’s Tractus Arte Press released a Romanian translation of his collection The Propaganda Factory, or Speaking of Trees at the 2015 Bucharest Book Fair. He is Executive Editor of MadHat Press and Plume Editions, International Editor of Plume Poetry, Co-Editor of Fulcrum, and lives and writes in Western Massachusetts.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews is the author of seven chapbooks and seven full-length collections. Her website is <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">ninandrews.com.</a></em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>This is the fourth in a series of blog posts I am doing this week to honor those who help make others’ literary lives possible, and sometimes even wonderful. Yesterday I talked about Danny Lawless, the editor of Plume.&#0160;</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb098946f5970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Cover Marc book" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb098946f5970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb098946f5970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Cover Marc book" /></a></p> <p>Danny Lawless’s partner in crime, co-editor, Marc Vincenz, is nothing short of a literary phenomenon. Born in Hong Kong to British-Swiss parents, he has lived in so many countries and languages, I wonder what language he dreams in. And which poets from around the world have been his primary influences. What language holds his music?</p> <p>A translator of many German-language poets, his translation of Klaus Merz&#39;s collection, <em>Unexpected Development,</em> was a finalist for the 2015 Cliff Becker Book Translation Prize and is forthcoming from White Pine Press next year.</p> <p>As a poet, not surprisingly, he is a man of many voices. His poems have a mythic and otherworldly quality, and seem to travel to other realms, far beyond expected and easily inhabited definitions. One senses mystical influences, as if he is seeking nothing less than to capture “the song of the world” or “the rapture of being alive,” in spite of inherent dualities. Yet, there is something both spellbinding and intimate in his work. He is also a deeply relevant and committed poet, with poems addressing the environmental demise of our planet. Whether ecstatic or despairing, witty or wild, his poems have a unique lyricism and vision.</p> <p>His poem, “Damaged Music,” for example, addresses both his environmental concerns and his spiritual longing.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong> <br />Damaged Music</strong></p> <p>Ache in the old wisdom tooth,</p> <p>an experience of self-fulfilling</p> <p>prophecy, a damaged music</p> <p>and acres of elephant bones.</p> <p>Here we go: Another evening</p> <p>of cold fiction, the starved</p> <p>ghosts of ancient citadels.</p> <p>I wish I might breathe sparrows</p> <p>into the sky or wind-weather</p> <p>the wild grass. I yearn</p> <p>for the smell of day</p> <p>in spring, for a language</p> <p>without words. May I</p> <p>one day climb out</p> <p>of that honeycomb of life</p> <p>and enter another world</p> <p>where there are no numbers</p> <p>to contain all of this, and</p> <p>the smooth, bloody</p> <p>thickness of oil flows</p> <p>into the smut</p> <p>of an ever-endless sky.</p> <p>One of my favorite&#0160;Marc Vincenz poems&#0160;is this beautiful poem, “Cassandra Knows How to Die of Beauty” in which he echoes Emily Dickinson:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>Cassandra Knows How to Die of Beauty</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Who knows</p> <p>what it’s like to be dead</p> <p>when we incessantly chatter</p> <p>between rooms?</p> <p>The name, love,</p> <p>is crossed out.</p> <p>Oh to write</p> <p>letter after letter</p> <p>belaboring</p> <p>a fruitless cause.</p> <p>A letter, of course,</p> <p>seems like immortality.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>So I thought I&#39;d ask Marc a few questions.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <ol> <li>Marc, I wondered if you would answer some of my early questions, such as: what language do you dream in? What poets have influenced you?</li> </ol> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e5fe0b970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Sound of Bees" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e5fe0b970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e5fe0b970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Sound of Bees" /></a>The language of dreams. A good question, Nin. I’m not sure; do we dream in a specific language? Certainly I have had conversations in my dreams in several languages: English, German, Spanish, Chinese and a smattering of poor Icelandic, but whether the dream is “narrated” or “set” in any specific language, I don’t think I can really be sure. Every once in a while, a poem or the title of a poem emerges from a dream. For that reason I keep a notepad on my bedside table; I have been known to wake up with a jolt in the middle of a night and scribble down the residue of what still lingers. Recently this occurred with a poem about my father, “My Father’s Familiar.” It was probably three o’clock in the morning, and the entire poem poured onto the page as if it had been written somewhere else long ago. The poem materialized in English. My sense is that my dreams are multilingual, but that the root language is English—which is the language I speak with my mother and the language I mostly think in.</p> <p>I am an avid reader of poetry. I probably spend over three hours every day reading poems. Normally, I have many books of poetry going at the same time. At this moment, I am reading Merwin’s translation of Dante’s <em>Purgatorio</em>; Terese Svoboda’s first book of poems, <em>Laughing Africa</em>; Campbell McGrath’s <em>XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century</em>; Hank Lazer’s recent book, <em>Poems Hidden in Plain View</em>; Hertha Kräftner’s <em>Kühle Sterne</em> (<em>Chilling Stars</em>); Kevin Prufer’s <em>Churches</em>; Richard Kenny’s <em>The Invention of Zero</em> (a hell of a wild ride); William Mathew’s <em>Selected Poems</em>; <em>Women Poets of China</em>, translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung; and I just got my copy of Bill Knott’s <em>Selected Poems</em> (edited by the late Tom Lux) … and that’s not to mention the whole slew of poems I read from submissions, manuscripts selected for publication, the translations I am working on, or new candidates I am seeking out. Right now I am translating Klaus Merz’s selected poems (1963–2016), <em>An Audible Blue</em>. I am awash in poetic voices. In some way, they all have influenced me.</p> <p>Here are some I have soft spots for: Tomas Tranströmer, Anna Akhmatova, Emily Dickinson, D. H. Lawrence, Nellie Sachs, Eugenio Montale, Yves Bonnefoy, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Robinson Jeffers, Reginald Shepherd, James Wright, Zbignew Herbert, W. B. Yeats, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens, Milosz, Novalis, Olav H. Hauge, Thoreau, Heraclitus and of course, Shakespeare and Goethe.</p> <ol start="2"> <li>How many languages were spoken in your childhood?</li> </ol> <p>I was brought up in a household that spoke three main languages: English, German and Rhetoromanish. On top of that, since early childhood (having been born in Hong Kong), I had the sounds of Cantonese and Mandarin clanking in my head. As a small child in the 1960s and ’70s, I played and scrapped with the children of the market-stall owners of Hong Kong’s Stanley Market and spoke fluent Cantonese. But my father worked with people from all over the world, and thus I grew up in a home that never had less than five languages careering around at any one time.</p> <ol start="3"> <li>When did you decide to become a poet?</li> </ol> <p>My first literary mentor as an undergrad at Duke University was Reynolds Price. He was constantly telling me that I might run aground on the same shores that William Blake was beached—with my mystical language and magical approach to verse. Reynolds preached complete clarity, and was mostly lauded for it (although he is predominately known for his fiction). And yet, Reynolds, aside from being a poet, fiction writer, essayist and novelist, was also a Milton scholar. Reynolds noted that T. S. Eliot himself famously criticized Milton’s syntax, saying it was “dictated by a demand for verbal music, instead of any demand of sense.” A little strange coming from the author of that oh-so-modernist <em>The Waste Land</em>. I am certain that Reynolds was delighted with this dichotomy. It may have been that fine line between syntax and sense that urged me to become a writer of poems. After I left Duke, I had made my decision. Of course, it took me many years and several incarnations before I began sending them out into the world, shepherding them between the covers of books.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <ol start="4"> <li>Tell me about the art of translations. I am certain you don’t translate as they say Bly did, with a bilingual dictionary. And what inspired you to become a translator?</li> </ol> <p><br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706c85970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Lifelong Bird Migration Cover" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706c85970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706c85970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Lifelong Bird Migration Cover" /></a>Originally I was satisfied with simply working on my own poetry—and fiction (my first novella is coming out soon from Spuyten Duvil Press), yet from time to time, these periods of silence would arise, when somehow I had over-saturated myself in my own imagined worlds. These periods sometimes occur when I have labored over one book or set of poems for so long that I need a complete change of scenery. The craft of translating helps me achieve a semblance of perspective on my own work. Anyway, it was during one of these phases when I was standing in the German Literature section of the Reykjavik Library and stumbled upon the work of the Swiss poet Erika Burkart. I began translating her book, <em>Geheimbrief</em> into English (it was recently released by Cervena Barva Press as <em>Secret Letter</em>) almost immediately, and without any particular goal in mind. After some months, I realized I had translated the whole book. Since then—almost nine years ago now, literary translation has become a part of my daily routine.</p> <p>When I translate poetry from the German, my initial approach is much as I would own work: a rough sketch, an impression, a sense of how that voice on the page quivers. I attempt to crystalize the tone, the cadence, the rhythm and then the intent in English. All this is done almost fleetingly, without (after the initial reading) specifically referring back to the original. I go through this process, editing and refining for several rounds. It is only much later, when I have a working draft in English in my hands that I begin to compare both texts side-by-side. Sometimes, I will have diverged significantly from the root text; yet, it is precisely in these moments of divergence that I might discover the unique vibrations of the original. Once again, as with writing my own work, I need to return again and again.</p> <p>I have had the good fortune also of working with a number of the poets I translate, listening together to find that frequency that brings their German into English. Their ears and eyes have also helped me meet these obstacles, and to realize that it is often in the most “untranslatable” passages that the magic may be found.</p> <ol start="5"> <li>Could we have a poem from <em>Unexpected Development</em>? And could you say a few words about Klaus Merz?</li> </ol> <p>With pleasure. Here’s “In the Course of Time”:</p> <p>The dignity of travel</p> <p>is seriously remiss,</p> <p>establishes my companion:</p> <p>We hurtle about in high-capacity boxcars</p> <p>straight through time, ear-</p> <p>marked, industrious, hunched over. And</p> <p>behind the Potemkin</p> <p>passengers, the world</p> <p>ceaselessly scatters.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Klaus’s work is exceedingly condensed and concise. Initially, it appears to be sparse and, perhaps a little simple, yet on second glance it hits you, somehow resonating outside the page. When it sinks it, and sometimes it takes a few moments, you never quite walk the same—at least that’s my experience of it. Klaus’s poems are sound bites, intimate moments, distilled flashes of insight, and, for the most part, no more than five lines; you get a whiff of Ancients having walked here. It’s almost as if his work comes directly out of the Japanese haiku tradition. I think it has something to do with the Zen majesty of the Swiss alpine landscapes.</p> <p>Although surely first and foremost a poet, Klaus is also a prize-winning fiction writer. His novella, <em>Jakob schläft</em> (<em>Jacob Asleep</em>), is, as literary fiction goes, a German-language bestseller. It was very recently published in English as part of a collection of three novellas by Seagull Books, <em>Stigmata of Bliss</em> (beautifully translated by Tess Lewis). <em>Unexpected Development</em> is the second collection of Klaus’s I have translated. The first was <em>Out of the Dust</em> (Spuyten Duyvil, 2014), and right now, I am working on a third book of translations, Klaus’s selected poems (1963–2016), <em>An Audible Blue</em>.</p> <ol start="6"> <li>How does the poetry world in Germany compare to that of the U.S.?</li> </ol> <p>Most of the German-language poets I have translated are Swiss. As Swiss poet and publisher Markus Bundi has told me, “You can count the readers of poetry in Switzerland in a book of matches.” In Switzerland there are virtually no literary journals—online or otherwise. Much of the promotion of the books and the literary events surrounding poetry is in the hands of the “literature houses”—and the likelihood that you will get invited to read or debate poetical works boils down to the cred and connections of your publisher.</p> <p>The poets I know in Switzerland who get their poetry collections published by higher-profile literary presses do so because they also write fiction. Basically, it is understood that if you want to publish your poetry, you had better deliver the occasional novel to make it worthwhile for the publisher. Today, in the German-language literary world, you find almost no poetry-only authors. And yes, in Germany, larger presses like Suhrkamp Verlag do release the occasional book of poetry—but these are few and far between, little literary prestige items to hold up to that flickering candle for posterity.</p> <p>There is much to say on this subject—which we don’t have time and space for here. Germany, Switzerland and Austria, although catering to the same language audience, each have their little anomalies. Of the three countries, Austria, with its well-developed grant and stipend system, is probably the most supportive of individual artists. Basically, with the exception of a handful of small presses, few publishers are willing to take risks on poetry these days. To survive on poetry—at the very least, to create the semblance of a poetic career (in the U.S., there is still the “option” of the academic path) is a virtual impossibility in the German-language literary world.</p> <ol start="7"> <li>You have a new book coming out … Could you say a few words about it? Maybe post a poem here from that collection?</li> </ol> <p>Well, last December, Ampersand Books released a limited-edition illustrated&#0160;chapbook of my long poem, Sibylline. Spuyten Duyvil is just about to release my translation of Jürg Amann’s last collection of poetry,&#0160;<em>Lifelong Bird Migration</em>, but what I have been working on most recently—as yet unfinished—is a collection of my own work, <em>The Syndicate of Water and Light</em>. Here’s one from that collection-in-progress:</p> <p><strong> <br />A Final Gathering</strong></p> <p>Filling up stolen time</p> <p>with bids and</p> <p>deceptions, with</p> <p>an evening sky</p> <p>flowing into</p> <p>the house—</p> <p>it is lovely</p> <p>to see</p> <p>above the city</p> <p>in the flight</p> <p>of the snow geese,</p> <p>valor surpasses</p> <p>honorable exile—</p> <p>still, the party continues</p> <p>and the streetnoise</p> <p>winds down,</p> <p>beneath the sniffles</p> <p>and the coughs and</p> <p>that faint voice enduring</p> <p>murky suspicions.</p> <p>I might be thinking</p> <p>we are divided</p> <p>like thieves, when</p> <p>a trembling pre-</p> <p>monition that things</p> <p>are void</p> <p>of substance, suddenly</p> <p>washes over me.</p> <ol start="8"> <li>How did you and Danny begin working together?</li> </ol> <p>Danny was introduced to me by the prolific translator and poet, Alex Cigale, whose translation of the Russian absurdist poet Daniil Kharms was just released by Northwestern University Press. Danny and I struck up a friendship quickly, realizing that our poetic tastes mirrored each other. In 2013, MadHat Press joined forces with <em>Plume</em> to begin publishing the <em>Plume </em>poetry anthology. Danny also invited me to join his editorial team at <em>Plume </em>online. Since then, aside from publishing the anthology, we launched a new imprint at MadHat Press, Plume Editions, which, among other things, now also publishes single-author poetry chapbooks and collections—and soon, translations too. Plume Editions recently released a chapbook by W. S. Di Piero, <em>The Man on the Water</em>; but has many new books lined up for release, including full collections by Jeff Friedman, Chris Buckley, Sally Bliumis-Dunn, JT Barbarese and Jennifer O’Grady.</p> <ol start="9"> <li>You also design the book covers for MadHat. Could you talk about the designing process? And maybe show two or three of your recent covers?</li> </ol> <p>In a way, the cover designing process is a form of translation. More often than not, I’ll let the books sink in, reflect, reflect again—and then, all of a sudden an image will arrive in my mind. For example: fog on a beach, or a house reflected in a flowing river, or a lunar landscape, or … anyway, you get the idea. It is very much an artistic process—finding the image that fits, then—the typography that sinks in or soars out of the visual reflections of the book. Over the years, I have compiled an archive of my own photos, doodles, paintings, visuals captured on the fly. I often reach into my pot to see if something fits what I have in my mind’s eye. If not, I’ll create an image from scratch. For example the cover image for Michael Anania’s newest collection, <em>Continuous Showings</em> (MadHat Press, 2017) is based on a photo that I took in Varanasi, India; Matt Babcock’s new book, <em>Strange Terrain</em> (MadHat, 2017) features a photo that I took in southwestern Iceland.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e74970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Man on the Water Cover" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e74970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e74970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Man on the Water Cover" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e76970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Man on the Water Cover" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e76970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e76970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Man on the Water Cover" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e78970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Man on the Water Cover" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e78970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e78970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Man on the Water Cover" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e45970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Marc_photo_hat" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e45970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2706e45970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Marc_photo_hat" /></a></em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Born in Hong Kong to British-Swiss parents, Marc Vincenz is the author of eight collections of poetry and several chapbooks. Vincenz is also the translator of many French-, Romanian- and German-language poets, including the Herman Hesse Prize winner Klaus Merz, Erika Burkart, Alexander Xaver Gwerder, Robert Walser, Ion Monoran. Jacques Chessex, and Jürg Amann. He has published eleven collections of translations. His translation of Klaus Merz&#39;s collection, Unexpected Development, was a finalist for the 2015 Cliff Becker Book Translation Prize and is forthcoming from White Pine Press. Vincenz has received many grants from the Swiss Arts Council and a fellowship from the Literary Colloquium Berlin. His own work has been translated into German, Russian, Romanian, French, Icelandic, Georgian and Chinese; Bucharest’s Tractus Arte Press released a Romanian translation of his collection The Propaganda Factory, or Speaking of Trees at the 2015 Bucharest Book Fair. He is Executive Editor of MadHat Press and Plume Editions, International Editor of Plume Poetry, Co-Editor of Fulcrum, and lives and writes in Western Massachusetts.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews is the author of seven chapbooks and seven full-length collections. Her website is <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">ninandrews.com.</a></em></p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01bb09888bab970d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-28T17:00:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09888ba9970dEditor and Poet: Danny Lawless (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-28T17:00:13Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><em>This is the third in a series of blog posts I am doing this week to honor those whom I call star-makers, meaning those who help make others’ literary lives possible, and sometimes even wonderful.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>It goes without saying that every poet is dependent on his or her editors. I’ve been amazed the few times I have guest-edited a magazine or helped judge a book contest—at just how much time and worry goes into the process. And most poetry editors do it for free.</p> <p>A year or two ago, when I was guest editing an issue of <em>Poets/Artists</em>, I wrote what I thought was a nice rejection letter to an aspiring poet. His poems were in the “almost” category, and I wanted to let him know how much I had enjoyed reading his work. I sent off what I thought was a kind email, and received back an outraged response. <em>Who the eff do you think you are, Nin Andrews? Well, I’ll tell you who you are . . . </em> Over the next few weeks, I received a barrage of hateful and threatening emails from this poet.&#0160;</p> <p>It occurred to me then that there is no such thing as a “nice rejection letter.” It also occurred to me that form letters have their place in the world. I was reminded of a friend who told me that David Lehman hated her. She just knew that was why she was never in <em>Best American Poetry</em>. Another poet told me that he would never get published in <em>Poetry</em> for the same reason. The editor, whom he had met briefly, had no respect for him. It seems that editors, despite their good intentions, despite everything they do for us poets and writers, are often objects of blame and rage.</p> <p>Yet many editors are nothing short of self-sacrificing. While they are busy championing others, they often fail to champion themselves. I don’t know of a&#0160;poet&#0160;as self-effacing as Danny Lawless, for example, who is the editor of the wonderful online magazine, <em>Plume</em>, and of the series of books and chapbooks published by MadHat Press. He and his brilliant co-editor, Marc Vincenz, are two of my favorite editors to date. But when I suggested I interview Danny for this series on the star-makers of the poetry world, Danny immediately tried to bow out.</p> <p>In my opinion, Danny Lawless is not only a great editor, he is also a unique and talented poet. Whether writing of his Catholic background, of his great grandmother’s backyard cremation&#0160;or&#0160;of his brother’s mental breakdown or his sister’s death, Lawless writes with emotional control, honesty, dark wit, and a clear eye for detail. His poems are at once witty and sad, profound and moving.</p> <p>The&#0160;title poem of his forthcoming book, “The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With,” first published in <a href="http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/64/lawless.php"><em>The Cortland Review,</em></a> is nothing short of breath-taking. I don’t think I need to do more than post it here and point out that it has already received 2.6 thousand Likes.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With</p> <p>By Danny Lawless</p> <p>Was a cubit long and weighed half as much as an average newborn U.S. baby.</p> <p>Who sold it to her remains a matter of police conjecture, a &quot;collector,&quot; most likely, or a friend in need</p> <p>Of cash; no receipt ever surfaced. What she did between the time she got it and the act</p> <p>Adds little to the picture: coffee at McDonalds, a few words exchanged with a balding man in an army</p> <p>Jacket outside the 7-11 on Broadway, no phone calls, no letter. When my mother got the</p> <p>News she was hanging sheets to dry on the backyard clothes line; neighbors heard her</p> <p>Cry two blocks over and thought a cat had died. (Where, exactly, Father spent that afternoon: c.f</p> <p>Conjecture.) How Irish-pretty she was, pale, petite, kind, smart and slyly funny are duly noted now on</p> <p>Her birthday, in photographs and little tales that end in tears that end in silence: we the cage</p> <p>And Rilke&#39;s panther pacing there, a thousand bars and beyond the bars no world but why.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Another Danny Lawless poem I admire is his poem, “Ant,” which speaks to both his existential angst and his characteristic Catholic humor. Again, no explanation is needed. The poem is a pure delight.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Ant</p> <p>I confess it was I</p> <p>Who stole a bag of hosts</p> <p>From the sacristy</p> <p>After serving eight o’clock Mass</p> <p>And ate them for breakfast</p> <p>With a bottle of chocolate milk</p> <p>Behind the dentist’s office.</p> <p>Who in eighth grade got a blowjob</p> <p>From Angela</p> <p>In the choir loft</p> <p>One stormy spring afternoon</p> <p>While the faces</p> <p>Of your fiery prophets</p> <p>Darkened with rage.</p> <p>I who stole twenty tabs of oxycotin</p> <p>From Gramma</p> <p>When she had her teeth pulled.</p> <p>Not to mention her car,</p> <p>Which I wrecked and left somewhere in Tampa.</p> <p>I who so many things.</p> <p>Yet still you find me,</p> <p>Lord,</p> <p>This fine October morning,</p> <p>Head bowed</p> <p>Before the sports pages.</p> <p>You who are the author</p> <p>Of my most intimate desires</p> <p>Ringing your bell</p> <p>As if I were a child at recess,</p> <p>And sending I see your most esteemed</p> <p>Black-robed emissary</p> <p>To fetch me.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160;* * *&#0160;</p> <p>So I thought I’d ask Danny Lawless a few questions here . . .</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> I wondered if you could say a few words about your life as a poet—when did you decide to become a poet? Could you say a few words about your writing process?</p> <p><strong>DL</strong>: As you know, these decisions are rarely epiphanic. (I might have made that word up.) Ours was a reading family, though not initially of the literary type—the backs of cereal boxes, Reader’s Digest Condensed Novels, that sort of thing. When my brother was just becoming ill (schizophrenia), I recall he was —eerily as it turns out —obsessed with Conrad Aiken’s short story “Silent Snow, Secret Snow.” So, being nine, I read that and <em>Guadalcanal Diary</em>. Poetry came later – fifteen or so. My aunt, a Mercy nun, got her Ph.D. at Notre dame, with a dissertation on Stevens, and left a stack of his books around. “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” probably was the first poem I ever read.</p> <p>My writing process: in a word, slow. I tend to come out of the gate strong, then pffft! the piece evaporates. So I start another one, and again the disappearing act. Eventually I have ten or twelve such quarter-poems, and either something finally clicks, or I cannibalize the others to make one poem, if I’m lucky.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> Is it hard to balance being an editor and a poet? What is your favorite non-literary pastime?</p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> It didn’t used to be, hard I mean. When I started<em> Plume</em>, I hadn’t really written much in, I am mortified to say, twenty-five or thirty years! Reading, always, but this writing lacuna remains a mystery. Then, suddenly, within a few months of <em>Plume</em>’s first issue, I wrote a poem over the course of a week, then another, and another. It’s been the same ever since. Non-literary pastimes? Well, I’m from Louisville, Kentucky — if you’re a sports fan you know that means basketball. Sometimes I joke that there, your father hands you a basketball and a pack of Marlboro’s for your twelfth birthday. I say a joke, because it’s actually more like your eighth birthday. I played pick-up with colleagues well into my forties, and when they dropped out, with my students. Now I shoot around every day —we have a hoop in the alley out back —but have over the last decade or so become a runner. I like the solitude <em>– The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner</em> was another favorite of my youth, and another odd earlier marker of what would come. By the way, it occurs to me that what <em>is </em>hard is reading so much marvelous poetry every day, in my inbox or from Submissions —terrifying and paralyzing, sometimes, to understand that you will <em>never</em> be that good.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> Could you say a few words about your forthcoming collection? When will it be&#0160;&#0160; out?</p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> <em>The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With and Other Poems</em> is the book’s title: quite the conversation-starter, right? It will be released in Spring, 2018, from Salmon.</p> <p>I’m still working on the arrangement of poems; I have a few “sections,” and&#0160;some ideas, but most of the poems have been published —well, ¾ anyway. I&#0160;hope, as you so kindly suggest, it<em> is</em> humorous, and dark, and witty, and sad, and&#0160;profound —but, I’d settle for any two of those. We’ll see.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> What was the inspiration for <em>Plume</em>? MadHat? How did you decide to become an&#0160;editor of <em>Plume</em>? What is the secret to its success?</p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> The origin myth of <em>Plume </em>I’ve recounted before, in one of those annoying Editor’s Notes I scribble out usually on the day before we need to go live with an issue: Creative Writing class, student, back row, clearly not paying any attention to my lecture as he scans his computer; I stroll back, expecting Facebook, games, porn – anything but what I discover a literary magazine he’s putting together. Hmmm. Meet me in my office: Let’s talk. Semester ends. We’ve become friends. Weeks of thinking <em>I could do this</em>… become weeks of laying out a website at Starbucks, emailing my favorite poets asking for work. The first to respond, within half an hour: Maureen McLane. Then others, and by the end of the week we had our first issue’s quota filled and half of the next’s. Who knew? Not I, that’s for sure.</p> <p>The inspiration a story both shorter and longer. I was a terrible student. In high school and college, later, somehow having acquired the notion that I knew more than my teachers, whom I considered squares, pedants —a notion let’s say they did not share. So, I read what I liked; for better or worse, I am largely an autodidact. (I once had “Roquentin” printed on a few of my tee shirts.) Anyway, I made the Louisville Public Library my home away from home, starting at fifteen or thereabouts. I’d wander through the stacks, taking down this or that book, until one day a year or so in, I tumbled on Cioran. <em>A Short History of Decay</em> and <em>The Temptation to Exist</em>. His aphorisms were like poetry but no poetry I’d ever encountered. His indexes were my guide for a good spell. Then I found the surrealists and the prose poem, through Benedikt’s magnificent anthologies. (I loved them so much I taught myself the rudiments of French in order to read the originals and remain an unreconstructed Francophile.) Onward to the South Americans, the Eastern Europeans, the Japanese…albeit in the process overlooking almost entirely what was happening in America then —in the late sixties and early seventies. So, here I was, gob-smacked by these poets no one around me, certainly not my teachers, had ever read, or heard of. And there, too, though I didn’t realize it at the time, was the inspiration, I’m certain, for <em>Plume.</em> Someday, somehow, I’d do something to preserve this astounding work; I felt like a monk, the library in my head the scriptorium. Grandiose, eh? But I was very young, and that’s what the young do best. When the journal came along, I saw my chance. The very first idea was to publish these saints, as I had come to see them: Char, Reverdy, Trakl, Montale, Parra, Miłosz, Celan, Pavese, Guillevic, Machado, Follain – especially Follain, the most sadly under-read of them all, perhaps, although Merwin saved him to some extent. (<em>Plume</em>’s original name was <em>Canisy</em>, the title of Follain’s ineffable memoire in prose poems of his childhood in that tiny village.) And that remains its guiding spirit, I guess, even if we have strayed from the letter of its unwritten law.</p> <p>As for the secret of its success —assuming we have been a success, and to whatever infinitesimal degree, I really think it has something to do with three things: 1) the number of poems we publish each issue is twelve —the Goldilocks principle, hit upon by chance, luck, again; “just right” for reading in a single sitting, like the ideal short story; 2) our “eclecticism” as so many readers term it — or “no aesthetic ax to grind” —one of our blurbs, from Jeff Skinner. In a single issue one might encounter, for example, Cole Swenson or Charles Bernstein, Alicia Ostriker, Sharon Olds, Bruce Smith, G.C. Waldrep, Nin Andrews, translations of Hsia Yü or Jacques Réda; and 3) our look” —clean, spare, without ads or other distractions that might take away from the thing-itself, the words on the page. (Yet, while I say this, I am reminded that we have added book reviews, essays, and Featured Selections of ten or so poems from a single author, and are fooling around with adding audio/visual interviews…one must to some extent keep up with the times, after all.)</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> Can you give me a highlight—one of your happiest editing experiences?</p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> But there are so many! Generally, though, it’s kind of one long highlight: getting to “meet” and sometimes become friends with, in a way, with poets I have admired forever. Never did I imagine I’d correspond, for example, with Gerry Stern, Tomaž Šalamun, Jean Valentine, Nina Cassian, Lydia Davis, Yves Bonnefoy. Star-struck. But then, of course, that wears off, and they become, as they must, people, with their endearing little pleasures and strange antipathies. But, one editing highlight: a well-known poet asked me to take a look at a poem whose last few lines he wasn’t happy with. Which I did, with the greatest trepidation, and thought I had an answer, sent it off. That same day, he replied with the most gracious, heartfelt email, saying that I’d better watch out or soon I’d have poems pouring in over the transom. So, there’s that.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> I’d love to close with a poem of your choice, either from your own work or from <em>Plume.</em></p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> Thanks so much, Nin. I think I’ll close with two, if you don’t mind, both &#0160;exemplars of the “I could never be that good” category and both from <em>Plume</em>.</p> <p>Linda Bierds’ “The Bird Trap,” a poem I’ve read no doubt a dozen times —each&#0160;reading a revelation, for the craft, surely, but also for how it illuminates the&#0160;delicate, grave affinities between the two geniuses at its heart. The other Phillis&#0160;Levin’s masterful “The Stroller,” which begins with the essential question of allpoetry, or at least one of its timeless queries: “And aren’t we all like this…”</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; The Bird Trap<br /> &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; --after the painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger</p> <p>But for clusters of red clothing, the painting<br /> is monochrome, snow and river<br /> in that ivory-going-to-gray a winter evening offers.</p> <p>And under the evening, under<br /> the sky and smoky horizon, traversing<br /> the painting’s lower half, deep snow and the frozen river<br /> exactly divide the scene:</p> <p>two dozen birds near a riverfront yard, six of them flying;<br /> two dozen people on the ice, six with arms extended.</p> <p>And under their laughter and guttural chirrups<br /> lies nothing but the scrape of skates<br /> and the dull chatter of curling stones<br /> as they slip, like great rounds of granite bread,<br /> toward some gradually vanishing target<br /> etched on the scored ice.</p> <p>*&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>Movements Alan Turing would love, had he seen the painting.<br /> The balancing figures, of course, and the curler,<br /> bent to a stone, putting a little English on it.<br /> But also the target, invisibly sinking away--<br /> rings, inner rings, and a center button—becoming<br /> at last just a pattern in the mind.</p> <p>*&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>It is 1952. The charge: gross indecency. The parlor:<br /> cluttered. On a cheap violin, Turing is playing<br /> “Cockles and Mussels”, the music’s wordless barrow<br /> scraping past Wills and Rimmer, two seated detectives<br /> who cannot stop mouthing sweet Molly Malone. Why not,<br /> for these minutes, listen, the bugger so welcoming,<br /> so quick to confess, as if two men together…as if<br /> two men complicitly trying<br /> the three condemned exchanges Turing so openly listed,<br /> were free? And isn’t it almost legal, he asked,<br /> and who is displaced, the world so shattered<br /> we must speak in codes, in key clicks and ciphers,<br /> rings, inner rings, the bow lifted, his unshaven chin<br /> on the rest, breath in, breath out, fogging<br /> the body, fogging the thin, yellowed,<br /> almost mother-of-pearl varnish, over<br /> and over, alive, alive-o.</p> <p>*&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>Two perils: in the lower left foreground<br /> a large, dark hole in the ice; in the lower right<br /> a bird trap—a heavy, wooden door<br /> propped up at one end by a stick.</p> <p>It makes a little lean-to, a little respite<br /> in the snow, its soft floor sprinkled with seeds,</p> <p>and its trip-rope, tied to the stick, so pale<br /> in the winter yard that Turing must step closer,<br /> must place his face near the old wood<br /> and stiffened leather hinges</p> <p>to see the rope arc upward--from the stick, through<br /> the yard, then on through a narrow window<br /> where someone invisibly watches.</p> <p>Or doesn’t. The window so close to the painting’s edge<br /> the trap seems harmless, unmanned, a simple<br /> geometric shape, a kind of static pendulum<br /> set to capture the turning world. And did they know,</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>Turing asked, that the proper way <br /> to launch a pendulum’s bob<br /> is by thread and candle flame? The bob<br /> tied above its downward arc, the candle<br /> burning through the tie. Foucault—more wine?--<br /> knew this. Did they? No chance for interference then.<br /> No clammy hands or coughs or tics. <br /> No common human veerings.</p> <p>*&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;*</p> <p>The house is almost outside the scene. A slice<br /> of wall and roofline, a slash of bird-blind window.</p> <p>In the foreground, left and right, <br /> two perils, passive: allegory’s lolling greed.</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>One takes the utmost care, he said.<br /> Clear path. Near-windless room. Star shape<br /> painted on the floor to illustrate the journey.</p> <p>Symmetry. Trajectory.</p> <p>Bright candle. Silk thread.<br /> </p> <p>The Stroller</p> <p>—Phillis Levin &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>from <em>The Plume</em> <em> Anthology of Poetry V 3</em></p> <p><em>Odessa Steps,</em></p> <p><em>Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin”</em></p> <p>And aren’t we all like this at times,<br /> Bumping helplessly down the stairs</p> <p>Into a street surging with fire,<br /> The one whose eyes were upon us</p> <p>Out of control of the handle<br /> Attached to our carriage?</p> <p>Why are we shocked when<br /> The glasses drop and the face</p> <p>Of horror crowds the screen?<br /> The reel crackles, there is</p> <p>No end in sight,<br /> Nowhere to flee.</p> <p>We have seen them before,<br /> People who look surprised</p> <p>To have lived so long: open<br /> An album, pass a wooden door.</p> <p>Late summer, the quiet creatures<br /> Scurrying through grass</p> <p>Know it’s time to start over,<br /> Theirs a genesis we cannot reenter.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Daniel Lawless</p> <p>3.3.2017</p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09888b8d970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Danny L 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09888b8d970d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09888b8d970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Danny L 2" /></a><br /><br /><br />Daniel Lawless’s book The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With and Other Poems is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry Press, 2017. He has published poems recently in Cortland Review, Louisville Review, American Journal of Poetry, The Common, Manhattan Review, Ploughshares, B O D Y, Prairie Schooner, FIELD, Fulcrum, Asheville Review, , etc. He is the founder and editor of Plume: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>This is the third in a series of blog posts I am doing this week to honor those whom I call star-makers, meaning those who help make others’ literary lives possible, and sometimes even wonderful.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>It goes without saying that every poet is dependent on his or her editors. I’ve been amazed the few times I have guest-edited a magazine or helped judge a book contest—at just how much time and worry goes into the process. And most poetry editors do it for free.</p> <p>A year or two ago, when I was guest editing an issue of <em>Poets/Artists</em>, I wrote what I thought was a nice rejection letter to an aspiring poet. His poems were in the “almost” category, and I wanted to let him know how much I had enjoyed reading his work. I sent off what I thought was a kind email, and received back an outraged response. <em>Who the eff do you think you are, Nin Andrews? Well, I’ll tell you who you are . . . </em> Over the next few weeks, I received a barrage of hateful and threatening emails from this poet.&#0160;</p> <p>It occurred to me then that there is no such thing as a “nice rejection letter.” It also occurred to me that form letters have their place in the world. I was reminded of a friend who told me that David Lehman hated her. She just knew that was why she was never in <em>Best American Poetry</em>. Another poet told me that he would never get published in <em>Poetry</em> for the same reason. The editor, whom he had met briefly, had no respect for him. It seems that editors, despite their good intentions, despite everything they do for us poets and writers, are often objects of blame and rage.</p> <p>Yet many editors are nothing short of self-sacrificing. While they are busy championing others, they often fail to champion themselves. I don’t know of a&#0160;poet&#0160;as self-effacing as Danny Lawless, for example, who is the editor of the wonderful online magazine, <em>Plume</em>, and of the series of books and chapbooks published by MadHat Press. He and his brilliant co-editor, Marc Vincenz, are two of my favorite editors to date. But when I suggested I interview Danny for this series on the star-makers of the poetry world, Danny immediately tried to bow out.</p> <p>In my opinion, Danny Lawless is not only a great editor, he is also a unique and talented poet. Whether writing of his Catholic background, of his great grandmother’s backyard cremation&#0160;or&#0160;of his brother’s mental breakdown or his sister’s death, Lawless writes with emotional control, honesty, dark wit, and a clear eye for detail. His poems are at once witty and sad, profound and moving.</p> <p>The&#0160;title poem of his forthcoming book, “The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With,” first published in <a href="http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/64/lawless.php"><em>The Cortland Review,</em></a> is nothing short of breath-taking. I don’t think I need to do more than post it here and point out that it has already received 2.6 thousand Likes.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With</p> <p>By Danny Lawless</p> <p>Was a cubit long and weighed half as much as an average newborn U.S. baby.</p> <p>Who sold it to her remains a matter of police conjecture, a &quot;collector,&quot; most likely, or a friend in need</p> <p>Of cash; no receipt ever surfaced. What she did between the time she got it and the act</p> <p>Adds little to the picture: coffee at McDonalds, a few words exchanged with a balding man in an army</p> <p>Jacket outside the 7-11 on Broadway, no phone calls, no letter. When my mother got the</p> <p>News she was hanging sheets to dry on the backyard clothes line; neighbors heard her</p> <p>Cry two blocks over and thought a cat had died. (Where, exactly, Father spent that afternoon: c.f</p> <p>Conjecture.) How Irish-pretty she was, pale, petite, kind, smart and slyly funny are duly noted now on</p> <p>Her birthday, in photographs and little tales that end in tears that end in silence: we the cage</p> <p>And Rilke&#39;s panther pacing there, a thousand bars and beyond the bars no world but why.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Another Danny Lawless poem I admire is his poem, “Ant,” which speaks to both his existential angst and his characteristic Catholic humor. Again, no explanation is needed. The poem is a pure delight.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Ant</p> <p>I confess it was I</p> <p>Who stole a bag of hosts</p> <p>From the sacristy</p> <p>After serving eight o’clock Mass</p> <p>And ate them for breakfast</p> <p>With a bottle of chocolate milk</p> <p>Behind the dentist’s office.</p> <p>Who in eighth grade got a blowjob</p> <p>From Angela</p> <p>In the choir loft</p> <p>One stormy spring afternoon</p> <p>While the faces</p> <p>Of your fiery prophets</p> <p>Darkened with rage.</p> <p>I who stole twenty tabs of oxycotin</p> <p>From Gramma</p> <p>When she had her teeth pulled.</p> <p>Not to mention her car,</p> <p>Which I wrecked and left somewhere in Tampa.</p> <p>I who so many things.</p> <p>Yet still you find me,</p> <p>Lord,</p> <p>This fine October morning,</p> <p>Head bowed</p> <p>Before the sports pages.</p> <p>You who are the author</p> <p>Of my most intimate desires</p> <p>Ringing your bell</p> <p>As if I were a child at recess,</p> <p>And sending I see your most esteemed</p> <p>Black-robed emissary</p> <p>To fetch me.</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160;* * *&#0160;</p> <p>So I thought I’d ask Danny Lawless a few questions here . . .</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> I wondered if you could say a few words about your life as a poet—when did you decide to become a poet? Could you say a few words about your writing process?</p> <p><strong>DL</strong>: As you know, these decisions are rarely epiphanic. (I might have made that word up.) Ours was a reading family, though not initially of the literary type—the backs of cereal boxes, Reader’s Digest Condensed Novels, that sort of thing. When my brother was just becoming ill (schizophrenia), I recall he was —eerily as it turns out —obsessed with Conrad Aiken’s short story “Silent Snow, Secret Snow.” So, being nine, I read that and <em>Guadalcanal Diary</em>. Poetry came later – fifteen or so. My aunt, a Mercy nun, got her Ph.D. at Notre dame, with a dissertation on Stevens, and left a stack of his books around. “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” probably was the first poem I ever read.</p> <p>My writing process: in a word, slow. I tend to come out of the gate strong, then pffft! the piece evaporates. So I start another one, and again the disappearing act. Eventually I have ten or twelve such quarter-poems, and either something finally clicks, or I cannibalize the others to make one poem, if I’m lucky.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> Is it hard to balance being an editor and a poet? What is your favorite non-literary pastime?</p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> It didn’t used to be, hard I mean. When I started<em> Plume</em>, I hadn’t really written much in, I am mortified to say, twenty-five or thirty years! Reading, always, but this writing lacuna remains a mystery. Then, suddenly, within a few months of <em>Plume</em>’s first issue, I wrote a poem over the course of a week, then another, and another. It’s been the same ever since. Non-literary pastimes? Well, I’m from Louisville, Kentucky — if you’re a sports fan you know that means basketball. Sometimes I joke that there, your father hands you a basketball and a pack of Marlboro’s for your twelfth birthday. I say a joke, because it’s actually more like your eighth birthday. I played pick-up with colleagues well into my forties, and when they dropped out, with my students. Now I shoot around every day —we have a hoop in the alley out back —but have over the last decade or so become a runner. I like the solitude <em>– The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner</em> was another favorite of my youth, and another odd earlier marker of what would come. By the way, it occurs to me that what <em>is </em>hard is reading so much marvelous poetry every day, in my inbox or from Submissions —terrifying and paralyzing, sometimes, to understand that you will <em>never</em> be that good.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> Could you say a few words about your forthcoming collection? When will it be&#0160;&#0160; out?</p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> <em>The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With and Other Poems</em> is the book’s title: quite the conversation-starter, right? It will be released in Spring, 2018, from Salmon.</p> <p>I’m still working on the arrangement of poems; I have a few “sections,” and&#0160;some ideas, but most of the poems have been published —well, ¾ anyway. I&#0160;hope, as you so kindly suggest, it<em> is</em> humorous, and dark, and witty, and sad, and&#0160;profound —but, I’d settle for any two of those. We’ll see.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> What was the inspiration for <em>Plume</em>? MadHat? How did you decide to become an&#0160;editor of <em>Plume</em>? What is the secret to its success?</p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> The origin myth of <em>Plume </em>I’ve recounted before, in one of those annoying Editor’s Notes I scribble out usually on the day before we need to go live with an issue: Creative Writing class, student, back row, clearly not paying any attention to my lecture as he scans his computer; I stroll back, expecting Facebook, games, porn – anything but what I discover a literary magazine he’s putting together. Hmmm. Meet me in my office: Let’s talk. Semester ends. We’ve become friends. Weeks of thinking <em>I could do this</em>… become weeks of laying out a website at Starbucks, emailing my favorite poets asking for work. The first to respond, within half an hour: Maureen McLane. Then others, and by the end of the week we had our first issue’s quota filled and half of the next’s. Who knew? Not I, that’s for sure.</p> <p>The inspiration a story both shorter and longer. I was a terrible student. In high school and college, later, somehow having acquired the notion that I knew more than my teachers, whom I considered squares, pedants —a notion let’s say they did not share. So, I read what I liked; for better or worse, I am largely an autodidact. (I once had “Roquentin” printed on a few of my tee shirts.) Anyway, I made the Louisville Public Library my home away from home, starting at fifteen or thereabouts. I’d wander through the stacks, taking down this or that book, until one day a year or so in, I tumbled on Cioran. <em>A Short History of Decay</em> and <em>The Temptation to Exist</em>. His aphorisms were like poetry but no poetry I’d ever encountered. His indexes were my guide for a good spell. Then I found the surrealists and the prose poem, through Benedikt’s magnificent anthologies. (I loved them so much I taught myself the rudiments of French in order to read the originals and remain an unreconstructed Francophile.) Onward to the South Americans, the Eastern Europeans, the Japanese…albeit in the process overlooking almost entirely what was happening in America then —in the late sixties and early seventies. So, here I was, gob-smacked by these poets no one around me, certainly not my teachers, had ever read, or heard of. And there, too, though I didn’t realize it at the time, was the inspiration, I’m certain, for <em>Plume.</em> Someday, somehow, I’d do something to preserve this astounding work; I felt like a monk, the library in my head the scriptorium. Grandiose, eh? But I was very young, and that’s what the young do best. When the journal came along, I saw my chance. The very first idea was to publish these saints, as I had come to see them: Char, Reverdy, Trakl, Montale, Parra, Miłosz, Celan, Pavese, Guillevic, Machado, Follain – especially Follain, the most sadly under-read of them all, perhaps, although Merwin saved him to some extent. (<em>Plume</em>’s original name was <em>Canisy</em>, the title of Follain’s ineffable memoire in prose poems of his childhood in that tiny village.) And that remains its guiding spirit, I guess, even if we have strayed from the letter of its unwritten law.</p> <p>As for the secret of its success —assuming we have been a success, and to whatever infinitesimal degree, I really think it has something to do with three things: 1) the number of poems we publish each issue is twelve —the Goldilocks principle, hit upon by chance, luck, again; “just right” for reading in a single sitting, like the ideal short story; 2) our “eclecticism” as so many readers term it — or “no aesthetic ax to grind” —one of our blurbs, from Jeff Skinner. In a single issue one might encounter, for example, Cole Swenson or Charles Bernstein, Alicia Ostriker, Sharon Olds, Bruce Smith, G.C. Waldrep, Nin Andrews, translations of Hsia Yü or Jacques Réda; and 3) our look” —clean, spare, without ads or other distractions that might take away from the thing-itself, the words on the page. (Yet, while I say this, I am reminded that we have added book reviews, essays, and Featured Selections of ten or so poems from a single author, and are fooling around with adding audio/visual interviews…one must to some extent keep up with the times, after all.)</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> Can you give me a highlight—one of your happiest editing experiences?</p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> But there are so many! Generally, though, it’s kind of one long highlight: getting to “meet” and sometimes become friends with, in a way, with poets I have admired forever. Never did I imagine I’d correspond, for example, with Gerry Stern, Tomaž Šalamun, Jean Valentine, Nina Cassian, Lydia Davis, Yves Bonnefoy. Star-struck. But then, of course, that wears off, and they become, as they must, people, with their endearing little pleasures and strange antipathies. But, one editing highlight: a well-known poet asked me to take a look at a poem whose last few lines he wasn’t happy with. Which I did, with the greatest trepidation, and thought I had an answer, sent it off. That same day, he replied with the most gracious, heartfelt email, saying that I’d better watch out or soon I’d have poems pouring in over the transom. So, there’s that.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> I’d love to close with a poem of your choice, either from your own work or from <em>Plume.</em></p> <p><strong>DL:</strong> Thanks so much, Nin. I think I’ll close with two, if you don’t mind, both &#0160;exemplars of the “I could never be that good” category and both from <em>Plume</em>.</p> <p>Linda Bierds’ “The Bird Trap,” a poem I’ve read no doubt a dozen times —each&#0160;reading a revelation, for the craft, surely, but also for how it illuminates the&#0160;delicate, grave affinities between the two geniuses at its heart. The other Phillis&#0160;Levin’s masterful “The Stroller,” which begins with the essential question of allpoetry, or at least one of its timeless queries: “And aren’t we all like this…”</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; The Bird Trap<br /> &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; --after the painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger</p> <p>But for clusters of red clothing, the painting<br /> is monochrome, snow and river<br /> in that ivory-going-to-gray a winter evening offers.</p> <p>And under the evening, under<br /> the sky and smoky horizon, traversing<br /> the painting’s lower half, deep snow and the frozen river<br /> exactly divide the scene:</p> <p>two dozen birds near a riverfront yard, six of them flying;<br /> two dozen people on the ice, six with arms extended.</p> <p>And under their laughter and guttural chirrups<br /> lies nothing but the scrape of skates<br /> and the dull chatter of curling stones<br /> as they slip, like great rounds of granite bread,<br /> toward some gradually vanishing target<br /> etched on the scored ice.</p> <p>*&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>Movements Alan Turing would love, had he seen the painting.<br /> The balancing figures, of course, and the curler,<br /> bent to a stone, putting a little English on it.<br /> But also the target, invisibly sinking away--<br /> rings, inner rings, and a center button—becoming<br /> at last just a pattern in the mind.</p> <p>*&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>It is 1952. The charge: gross indecency. The parlor:<br /> cluttered. On a cheap violin, Turing is playing<br /> “Cockles and Mussels”, the music’s wordless barrow<br /> scraping past Wills and Rimmer, two seated detectives<br /> who cannot stop mouthing sweet Molly Malone. Why not,<br /> for these minutes, listen, the bugger so welcoming,<br /> so quick to confess, as if two men together…as if<br /> two men complicitly trying<br /> the three condemned exchanges Turing so openly listed,<br /> were free? And isn’t it almost legal, he asked,<br /> and who is displaced, the world so shattered<br /> we must speak in codes, in key clicks and ciphers,<br /> rings, inner rings, the bow lifted, his unshaven chin<br /> on the rest, breath in, breath out, fogging<br /> the body, fogging the thin, yellowed,<br /> almost mother-of-pearl varnish, over<br /> and over, alive, alive-o.</p> <p>*&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>Two perils: in the lower left foreground<br /> a large, dark hole in the ice; in the lower right<br /> a bird trap—a heavy, wooden door<br /> propped up at one end by a stick.</p> <p>It makes a little lean-to, a little respite<br /> in the snow, its soft floor sprinkled with seeds,</p> <p>and its trip-rope, tied to the stick, so pale<br /> in the winter yard that Turing must step closer,<br /> must place his face near the old wood<br /> and stiffened leather hinges</p> <p>to see the rope arc upward--from the stick, through<br /> the yard, then on through a narrow window<br /> where someone invisibly watches.</p> <p>Or doesn’t. The window so close to the painting’s edge<br /> the trap seems harmless, unmanned, a simple<br /> geometric shape, a kind of static pendulum<br /> set to capture the turning world. And did they know,</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>Turing asked, that the proper way <br /> to launch a pendulum’s bob<br /> is by thread and candle flame? The bob<br /> tied above its downward arc, the candle<br /> burning through the tie. Foucault—more wine?--<br /> knew this. Did they? No chance for interference then.<br /> No clammy hands or coughs or tics. <br /> No common human veerings.</p> <p>*&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;*</p> <p>The house is almost outside the scene. A slice<br /> of wall and roofline, a slash of bird-blind window.</p> <p>In the foreground, left and right, <br /> two perils, passive: allegory’s lolling greed.</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; *</p> <p>One takes the utmost care, he said.<br /> Clear path. Near-windless room. Star shape<br /> painted on the floor to illustrate the journey.</p> <p>Symmetry. Trajectory.</p> <p>Bright candle. Silk thread.<br /> </p> <p>The Stroller</p> <p>—Phillis Levin &#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>from <em>The Plume</em> <em> Anthology of Poetry V 3</em></p> <p><em>Odessa Steps,</em></p> <p><em>Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin”</em></p> <p>And aren’t we all like this at times,<br /> Bumping helplessly down the stairs</p> <p>Into a street surging with fire,<br /> The one whose eyes were upon us</p> <p>Out of control of the handle<br /> Attached to our carriage?</p> <p>Why are we shocked when<br /> The glasses drop and the face</p> <p>Of horror crowds the screen?<br /> The reel crackles, there is</p> <p>No end in sight,<br /> Nowhere to flee.</p> <p>We have seen them before,<br /> People who look surprised</p> <p>To have lived so long: open<br /> An album, pass a wooden door.</p> <p>Late summer, the quiet creatures<br /> Scurrying through grass</p> <p>Know it’s time to start over,<br /> Theirs a genesis we cannot reenter.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Daniel Lawless</p> <p>3.3.2017</p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09888b8d970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Danny L 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09888b8d970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09888b8d970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Danny L 2" /></a><br /><br /><br />Daniel Lawless’s book The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With and Other Poems is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry Press, 2017. He has published poems recently in Cortland Review, Louisville Review, American Journal of Poetry, The Common, Manhattan Review, Ploughshares, B O D Y, Prairie Schooner, FIELD, Fulcrum, Asheville Review, , etc. He is the founder and editor of Plume: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>&#0160;</em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d26f48eb970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-27T16:18:54Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26f48e9970cJen Campbell, Poet, Writer & YOUTUBE Reporter Extraordinaire (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-27T16:18:54Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><em>This is the second in a series of blog posts I am doing this week to honor those who help make others’ literary lives possible---and even wonderful at times.</em></p> <p>Another woman to whom I and many writers owe a great deal of gratitude is the British author and former bookseller, Jen Campbell, who spends a part of her days talking about all things literary and promoting books and writers on her popular <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/jenvcampbell">YOUTUBE channe</a>l. She is at once witty, charming, brilliant, and inspiring. Listening to her explain anything from a fairytale to a poetry book to a novel to various aspects of the writer’s life is both fun and enlightening. But be forewarned. Jen Campbell can be addictive. I have binge-watched her on occasion. She is my favorite virtual bookshop-stop.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09881951970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="1251161" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09881951970d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09881951970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="1251161" /></a>An award-winning poet and writer in her own right, Jen Campbell has written several books including <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bookshop-Book-Jen-Campbell/dp/1472116666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1490627512&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=jen+campbell"><em>The Bookshop Book</em></a>, which reads is like an ode to bookshops around the globe. In it, she describes 300 bookshops on six continents and includes insights from famous authors about their love of books and book stores.</p> <p>In her section on the United States, she quotes Tracy Chevalier suggesting that the ideal bookshop might have chocolates, hidden among the books. (I’m all for that!) And Bill Bryson describes the literary discoveries one has in a bookshop--that ability to find “books that are forgotten classics, or books that didn’t get the chance to be classics because they weren’t discovered properly.” I think that is exactly why bookshops are so necessary. So many great books never get their moment in the sun, and with the Amazon take-over, how are we to discover them?</p> <p>Her book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Things-Customers-Say-Bookstores/dp/1468308939/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=1468308939&amp;pd_rd_r=SBKTAK5JG4G1Z34Z3J8Y&amp;pd_rd_w=RZsXY&amp;pd_rd_wg=7MHvb&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=SBKTAK5JG4G1Z34Z3J8Y"><em>Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores</em></a>, is delightful and funny and sometimes a bit shocking. Made up entirely made of quotes of things people say in bookshops, the book reminds me of some of the more humorous moments spent working at the New Dominion Bookshop (which I <a href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2017/03/in-memory-of-carol-troxell-former-owner-of-the-new-dominion-bookshop-by-nin-andrews.html">posted </a>about last&#0160;Friday.) &#0160;</p> <p>A few examples:</p> <p>Customer: I’m looking for some books on my kid’s summer reading list. Do you have Tequila Mockingbird?</p> <p>Customer: Excuse me, do you have Flowers for Arugula?</p> <p>Customer: Excuse me, do you have Fiddler on a Hot Tin Roof?</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d4db970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Tbm_bookshop-cover-front-v1" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d4db970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d4db970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Tbm_bookshop-cover-front-v1" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>But the scariest one was this one:</p> <p>Customer: Hi, I just wanted to ask: did Anne Frank ever write a sequel?</p> <p>Bookseller: . . .</p> <p>Customer: I really enjoyed her first book.</p> <p>Bookseller: Her diary?</p> <p>Customer: Yes, her diary.</p> <p>Bookseller: Her diary wasn’t fictional.</p> <p>Customer: Really?</p> <p>Bookseller: Yes . . . She really dies at the end—that’s why the diary finishes. She was taken to a concentration camp.</p> <p>Customer: Oh . . . that’s terrible.</p> <p>Bookseller: Yes, it was awful.</p> <p>Customer: I mean, what a shame, you know? She was such a good writer.</p> <p>I am so looking forward to Jen Campbell’s forthcoming books, a children’s book, <em>Franklin’s Flying Bookshop</em>, and her collection of short stories,&#0160;<em>The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night</em>.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> I was wondering if you could say a few words about your transition from bookseller to YOUTUBE reporter. Do you miss the bookshop?</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong> I loved working in bookselling, and there are definitely parts of it that I miss. Especially pressing books into the hands of children. Children always say the best things, too. Such as:</p> <p>Little girl (pointing to a cupboard under one of the bookshelves): Can you get to Narnia through there?</p> <p>Me: Unfortunately, I don’t think you can.</p> <p>Little girl: Oh. Our wardrobe at home doesn’t work for getting to Narnia, either.</p> <p>Me: No?</p> <p>Little girl: No. Dad says it’s because mum bought it at IKEA.&#0160;</p> <p>Creating videos on Booktube is now part of my job, along with being a writer and other freelance work.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160;You spend a lot of your time reading and promoting other writers, and yet you are also a prolific writer with two new books coming out this year. How do you find the books you promote?</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong> In bookshops and also by looking through the catalogues of small presses on their websites. I’m also approached by publishers with 30-40 review requests a week, but I only say yes to a couple of those. I only review books I want to read - that’s why Booktube is a different space to other media; I’m not paid to review books (though occasionally I work with companies such as the Baileys Prize and Northern Ballet). I hope it’s like checking in with a friendly bookseller.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> And you still have time to write?</p> <p><strong>JC: &#0160;</strong>Writing is my job (first and foremost) but obviously it wasn’t always that way. There were many years of working seven days a week in a bookshop, getting up at 5am to write before work, and then writing again in the evening. If you’re passionate about something, you have to make the time to do it.</p> <p><strong>NA: &#0160;</strong>On your YOUTUBE series, I particularly love your <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjtv2paHuI4">analysis of fairy tales.</a> Your forthcoming short story collection&#0160;is influenced by fairytales? Could you say a few words about it? Maybe give us an excerpt?</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong> No excerpts, I’m afraid - I’m not allowed to do that yet ;) - but I can say that it opens with a heart arriving in the post. Here’s the blurb:</p> <p>Spirits in jam jars, mini-apocalypses, animal hearts and side shows.</p> <p>A girl runs a coffin hotel on a remote island.</p> <p>A boy is worried his sister has two souls.</p> <p>A couple are rewriting the history of the world.</p> <p>And mermaids are on display at the local aquarium.</p> <p><em><a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/the-beginning-of-the-world-in-the-middle-of-the-night.html">The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night</a></em> is a collection of twelve haunting stories; modern fairy tales brimming with magic, outsiders and lost souls.&#0160;Advance praise has already come in from Carys Bray who called it ‘enchanting and whimsical, curiously beautiful and illuminating’ and Claire Fuller: ‘This book is full of character and magic, and I found myself mesmerised.’</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d698970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Url" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d698970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d698970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Url" /></a>NA:</strong>&#0160;I’m wondering how the literary world in London compares with that in the U.S.?</p> <p>Do you give a lot of readings? At bookshops? Pubs? Universities? Is there much of an audience for poetry?</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong> When a book comes out, I go on book tour - talk at bookshops and libraries, book festivals etc. The rest of the time, I give talks at universities or do workshops in schools. I run <a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/writing-workshops.html">workshops</a> online, too. There is an audience for poetry, but it’s smaller than an audience for other genres; I think that’s generally the case in most places.</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I love your poetry book,&#0160;<em>The Hungry Ghost Festival</em> and am looking forward to reading <em>the girl aquarium.</em> I was wondering if we could close with a poem of your choice.</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong>&#0160; I’m not sure if you’re asking for one of mine, or a poem by someone else so I will offer both. x</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.foreveryyear.eu/p/1776-co-rebecca-perry.html">fantastic poem by Rebecca Perry</a>&#0160;and you can find some of mine <a href="https://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/news/661-jane-martin-poetry-prize-2013-winner-announced">here.</a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d475970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Jenlola" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d475970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d475970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Jenlola" /></a>Jen Campbell is an award winning poet and short story writer. Her debut short story collection, &#39;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/the-beginning-of-the-world-in-the-middle-of-the-night.html">The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night</a>,&#39; is forthcoming from Two Roads (November 2017) and her first children&#39;s book &#39;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/childrens-books.html">Franklin&#39;s Flying Bookshop</a>&#39; will be published by Thames &amp; Hudson (August 2017).&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>Jen is also the author of the Sunday Times bestselling&#0160;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/weird-things-customers-say-in-bookshops.html">Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops</a>&#0160;series, and&#0160;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/the-bookshop-book.html">The Bookshop Book</a>. Her poetry pamphlet&#0160;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/the-hungry-ghost-festival.html">The Hungry Ghost Festival&#0160;</a>is&#0160;published by The Rialto, and her collection in progress,&#0160;the girl aquarium, won an Eric Gregory Award in 2016.&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>Jen worked as a bookseller for ten years and now&#0160;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/youtube.html">runs a Youtube channel</a>,&#0160;where she talks about all things books. She is currently a judge for this year&#39;s Somerset Maugham Award. She grew up in the north east of England and now lives in London.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews next book, <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">Miss August, can be pre-ordered now,</a> and is&#0160;forthcoming from CavanKerry Press. You can find out more about her and sign up for her emails by going to&#0160;<a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">ninandrews.com</a>.</em></p> <p><em>This is the second in a series of blog posts I am doing this week to honor those who help make others’ literary lives possible---and even wonderful at times.</em></p> <p>Another woman to whom I and many writers owe a great deal of gratitude is the British author and former bookseller, Jen Campbell, who spends a part of her days talking about all things literary and promoting books and writers on her popular <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/jenvcampbell">YOUTUBE channe</a>l. She is at once witty, charming, brilliant, and inspiring. Listening to her explain anything from a fairytale to a poetry book to a novel to various aspects of the writer’s life is both fun and enlightening. But be forewarned. Jen Campbell can be addictive. I have binge-watched her on occasion. She is my favorite virtual bookshop-stop.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09881951970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="1251161" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09881951970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09881951970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="1251161" /></a>An award-winning poet and writer in her own right, Jen Campbell has written several books including <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bookshop-Book-Jen-Campbell/dp/1472116666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1490627512&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=jen+campbell"><em>The Bookshop Book</em></a>, which reads is like an ode to bookshops around the globe. In it, she describes 300 bookshops on six continents and includes insights from famous authors about their love of books and book stores.</p> <p>In her section on the United States, she quotes Tracy Chevalier suggesting that the ideal bookshop might have chocolates, hidden among the books. (I’m all for that!) And Bill Bryson describes the literary discoveries one has in a bookshop--that ability to find “books that are forgotten classics, or books that didn’t get the chance to be classics because they weren’t discovered properly.” I think that is exactly why bookshops are so necessary. So many great books never get their moment in the sun, and with the Amazon take-over, how are we to discover them?</p> <p>Her book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Things-Customers-Say-Bookstores/dp/1468308939/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=1468308939&amp;pd_rd_r=SBKTAK5JG4G1Z34Z3J8Y&amp;pd_rd_w=RZsXY&amp;pd_rd_wg=7MHvb&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=SBKTAK5JG4G1Z34Z3J8Y"><em>Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores</em></a>, is delightful and funny and sometimes a bit shocking. Made up entirely made of quotes of things people say in bookshops, the book reminds me of some of the more humorous moments spent working at the New Dominion Bookshop (which I <a href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2017/03/in-memory-of-carol-troxell-former-owner-of-the-new-dominion-bookshop-by-nin-andrews.html">posted </a>about last&#0160;Friday.) &#0160;</p> <p>A few examples:</p> <p>Customer: I’m looking for some books on my kid’s summer reading list. Do you have Tequila Mockingbird?</p> <p>Customer: Excuse me, do you have Flowers for Arugula?</p> <p>Customer: Excuse me, do you have Fiddler on a Hot Tin Roof?</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d4db970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Tbm_bookshop-cover-front-v1" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d4db970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d4db970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Tbm_bookshop-cover-front-v1" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>But the scariest one was this one:</p> <p>Customer: Hi, I just wanted to ask: did Anne Frank ever write a sequel?</p> <p>Bookseller: . . .</p> <p>Customer: I really enjoyed her first book.</p> <p>Bookseller: Her diary?</p> <p>Customer: Yes, her diary.</p> <p>Bookseller: Her diary wasn’t fictional.</p> <p>Customer: Really?</p> <p>Bookseller: Yes . . . She really dies at the end—that’s why the diary finishes. She was taken to a concentration camp.</p> <p>Customer: Oh . . . that’s terrible.</p> <p>Bookseller: Yes, it was awful.</p> <p>Customer: I mean, what a shame, you know? She was such a good writer.</p> <p>I am so looking forward to Jen Campbell’s forthcoming books, a children’s book, <em>Franklin’s Flying Bookshop</em>, and her collection of short stories,&#0160;<em>The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night</em>.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> I was wondering if you could say a few words about your transition from bookseller to YOUTUBE reporter. Do you miss the bookshop?</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong> I loved working in bookselling, and there are definitely parts of it that I miss. Especially pressing books into the hands of children. Children always say the best things, too. Such as:</p> <p>Little girl (pointing to a cupboard under one of the bookshelves): Can you get to Narnia through there?</p> <p>Me: Unfortunately, I don’t think you can.</p> <p>Little girl: Oh. Our wardrobe at home doesn’t work for getting to Narnia, either.</p> <p>Me: No?</p> <p>Little girl: No. Dad says it’s because mum bought it at IKEA.&#0160;</p> <p>Creating videos on Booktube is now part of my job, along with being a writer and other freelance work.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong>&#0160;You spend a lot of your time reading and promoting other writers, and yet you are also a prolific writer with two new books coming out this year. How do you find the books you promote?</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong> In bookshops and also by looking through the catalogues of small presses on their websites. I’m also approached by publishers with 30-40 review requests a week, but I only say yes to a couple of those. I only review books I want to read - that’s why Booktube is a different space to other media; I’m not paid to review books (though occasionally I work with companies such as the Baileys Prize and Northern Ballet). I hope it’s like checking in with a friendly bookseller.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> And you still have time to write?</p> <p><strong>JC: &#0160;</strong>Writing is my job (first and foremost) but obviously it wasn’t always that way. There were many years of working seven days a week in a bookshop, getting up at 5am to write before work, and then writing again in the evening. If you’re passionate about something, you have to make the time to do it.</p> <p><strong>NA: &#0160;</strong>On your YOUTUBE series, I particularly love your <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjtv2paHuI4">analysis of fairy tales.</a> Your forthcoming short story collection&#0160;is influenced by fairytales? Could you say a few words about it? Maybe give us an excerpt?</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong> No excerpts, I’m afraid - I’m not allowed to do that yet ;) - but I can say that it opens with a heart arriving in the post. Here’s the blurb:</p> <p>Spirits in jam jars, mini-apocalypses, animal hearts and side shows.</p> <p>A girl runs a coffin hotel on a remote island.</p> <p>A boy is worried his sister has two souls.</p> <p>A couple are rewriting the history of the world.</p> <p>And mermaids are on display at the local aquarium.</p> <p><em><a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/the-beginning-of-the-world-in-the-middle-of-the-night.html">The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night</a></em> is a collection of twelve haunting stories; modern fairy tales brimming with magic, outsiders and lost souls.&#0160;Advance praise has already come in from Carys Bray who called it ‘enchanting and whimsical, curiously beautiful and illuminating’ and Claire Fuller: ‘This book is full of character and magic, and I found myself mesmerised.’</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d698970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Url" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d698970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d698970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Url" /></a>NA:</strong>&#0160;I’m wondering how the literary world in London compares with that in the U.S.?</p> <p>Do you give a lot of readings? At bookshops? Pubs? Universities? Is there much of an audience for poetry?</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong> When a book comes out, I go on book tour - talk at bookshops and libraries, book festivals etc. The rest of the time, I give talks at universities or do workshops in schools. I run <a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/writing-workshops.html">workshops</a> online, too. There is an audience for poetry, but it’s smaller than an audience for other genres; I think that’s generally the case in most places.</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;</strong>I love your poetry book,&#0160;<em>The Hungry Ghost Festival</em> and am looking forward to reading <em>the girl aquarium.</em> I was wondering if we could close with a poem of your choice.</p> <p><strong>JC:</strong>&#0160; I’m not sure if you’re asking for one of mine, or a poem by someone else so I will offer both. x</p> <p>This <a href="http://www.foreveryyear.eu/p/1776-co-rebecca-perry.html">fantastic poem by Rebecca Perry</a>&#0160;and you can find some of mine <a href="https://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/news/661-jane-martin-poetry-prize-2013-winner-announced">here.</a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d475970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Jenlola" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d475970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e4d475970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Jenlola" /></a>Jen Campbell is an award winning poet and short story writer. Her debut short story collection, &#39;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/the-beginning-of-the-world-in-the-middle-of-the-night.html">The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night</a>,&#39; is forthcoming from Two Roads (November 2017) and her first children&#39;s book &#39;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/childrens-books.html">Franklin&#39;s Flying Bookshop</a>&#39; will be published by Thames &amp; Hudson (August 2017).&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>Jen is also the author of the Sunday Times bestselling&#0160;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/weird-things-customers-say-in-bookshops.html">Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops</a>&#0160;series, and&#0160;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/the-bookshop-book.html">The Bookshop Book</a>. Her poetry pamphlet&#0160;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/the-hungry-ghost-festival.html">The Hungry Ghost Festival&#0160;</a>is&#0160;published by The Rialto, and her collection in progress,&#0160;the girl aquarium, won an Eric Gregory Award in 2016.&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>Jen worked as a bookseller for ten years and now&#0160;<a href="http://www.jen-campbell.co.uk/youtube.html">runs a Youtube channel</a>,&#0160;where she talks about all things books. She is currently a judge for this year&#39;s Somerset Maugham Award. She grew up in the north east of England and now lives in London.</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews next book, <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">Miss August, can be pre-ordered now,</a> and is&#0160;forthcoming from CavanKerry Press. You can find out more about her and sign up for her emails by going to&#0160;<a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">ninandrews.com</a>.</em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d26e4a76970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-24T18:45:21Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26e4a74970cIn Memory of Carol Troxell, Former Owner of the New Dominion Bookshop (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-24T18:45:21Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><em>As I stated in my previous post, I am going to be doing a series of blog posts&#0160;in honor of those who help make others’ literary lives possible, and even wonderful at times. I was going to wait until next week to start the series, but then I realized that the Virginia Festival of the Book is happening now. I thought of Carol Troxell, the former o</em><em>wner of the independent shop, The New Dominion Bookshop, in Charlottesville, Virginia, who died last winter and who helped to establish the Festival.&#0160;</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3df49970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_3018" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3df49970b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3df49970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_3018" /></a>&#0160;Last January, on one of those typical drab winter mornings, I received a cryptic email from my friend, Anne Marie Slaughter,&#0160;informing me that <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/new-dominion-owner-dies-unexpectedly/article_b67abb16-de59-11e6-8159-cb9d91b887ee.html">Carol Troxell</a>&#0160;had died unexpectedly. I was stunned. Carol was such a special woman. She was also a special kind of bookseller.&#0160;The New Dominion Bookshop was (and still is, at least for now) a unique bookshop—one of those rare shops that serves as an&#0160;ideal landing place for book lovers. The section for poetry is huge, and is in the front of the store, not tucked away in some dark, depressing basement or backroom. It’s such a dream to browse&#0160;the books there, to spend hours going over the works of poets whose names I hear but can never find in book&#0160;stores anymore. I have discovered so many poets on the New Dominion&#39;s shelves, some&#0160;who have not been lucky enough to be reviewed or otherwise recognized. I discovered&#0160;Amy Gerstler &#0160;there, long before she had won any awards. (I will have to do an <em>I LOVE AMY</em> post at a later date.)</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26e40df970c-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="IMG_3017" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26e40df970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26e40df970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="IMG_3017" /></a></p> <p>In addition to displaying a vast collection of books (and not just poetry books, of course, though those are all poetry books in the photo to the right), Carol was a great promoter of poets and writers, regularly hosting readings and book signings, and, as I said in the opening, playing a large role in the Virginia Festival of the Book.</p> <p>Carol and I go back to the 1970’s, back before she took ownership of the bookshop, when I was in &#0160;ninth grade, and Anne Marie and I worked at the shop after school. We&#0160;spent many hours laughing and discussing literature with Carol when we weren&#39;t helping customers. Carol had this amazing knack for finding the perfect book for just about anyone. Including me. &#0160;I still remember the hot June afternoon&#0160;when she took a slender volume off the shelf and said<em>, I bet you would like this book, Nin!</em> (She always said my name as if it had an exclamation mark after it.) The book was <em>Gestures</em> by Yannis Ristos, a poetry collection I am still in love with. How did she know I would love it? It wasn’t just an ordinary love either. At home I copied Ritsos poems over and over in loopy script, drawing little flowers and cartoons in the margins. I told Carol I wanted to become a poet just like Yannis Ritsos. Never mind that I was an adolescent girl from rural Virginia, and he was an old&#0160;man from Greece, and the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize. Years later she&#0160;recommended Murakami to me, a writer I adore but whom she could not abide. <em>Explain him to me</em>, she would say, hands on her hips. And I would try. What laughs we had! &#0160;I could go on and on, but I will stop for now . . .&#0160;</p> <p>I can’t imagine what it would be like to own a bookshop in this era of Kindles and online shopping, but I know it would take someone with the kind of gifts Carol possessed to make it work. She was one of those holdouts who still believed in the integrity of physical books and bookshops. She saw books and her shop as a valuable part of the community, a way of bringing people together in mind and body and spirit. She is deeply missed.</p> <p>&#0160;<em>Nin Andrews&#39; next collection of poetry, Miss August, is due out in May. You can sign up for her email (not sure if you want to do that!) or find out more about her by visiting <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">ninandrews.com</a></em></p> <p><em>As I stated in my previous post, I am going to be doing a series of blog posts&#0160;in honor of those who help make others’ literary lives possible, and even wonderful at times. I was going to wait until next week to start the series, but then I realized that the Virginia Festival of the Book is happening now. I thought of Carol Troxell, the former o</em><em>wner of the independent shop, The New Dominion Bookshop, in Charlottesville, Virginia, who died last winter and who helped to establish the Festival.&#0160;</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3df49970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_3018" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3df49970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3df49970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_3018" /></a>&#0160;Last January, on one of those typical drab winter mornings, I received a cryptic email from my friend, Anne Marie Slaughter,&#0160;informing me that <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/new-dominion-owner-dies-unexpectedly/article_b67abb16-de59-11e6-8159-cb9d91b887ee.html">Carol Troxell</a>&#0160;had died unexpectedly. I was stunned. Carol was such a special woman. She was also a special kind of bookseller.&#0160;The New Dominion Bookshop was (and still is, at least for now) a unique bookshop—one of those rare shops that serves as an&#0160;ideal landing place for book lovers. The section for poetry is huge, and is in the front of the store, not tucked away in some dark, depressing basement or backroom. It’s such a dream to browse&#0160;the books there, to spend hours going over the works of poets whose names I hear but can never find in book&#0160;stores anymore. I have discovered so many poets on the New Dominion&#39;s shelves, some&#0160;who have not been lucky enough to be reviewed or otherwise recognized. I discovered&#0160;Amy Gerstler &#0160;there, long before she had won any awards. (I will have to do an <em>I LOVE AMY</em> post at a later date.)</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26e40df970c-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="IMG_3017" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26e40df970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26e40df970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="IMG_3017" /></a></p> <p>In addition to displaying a vast collection of books (and not just poetry books, of course, though those are all poetry books in the photo to the right), Carol was a great promoter of poets and writers, regularly hosting readings and book signings, and, as I said in the opening, playing a large role in the Virginia Festival of the Book.</p> <p>Carol and I go back to the 1970’s, back before she took ownership of the bookshop, when I was in &#0160;ninth grade, and Anne Marie and I worked at the shop after school. We&#0160;spent many hours laughing and discussing literature with Carol when we weren&#39;t helping customers. Carol had this amazing knack for finding the perfect book for just about anyone. Including me. &#0160;I still remember the hot June afternoon&#0160;when she took a slender volume off the shelf and said<em>, I bet you would like this book, Nin!</em> (She always said my name as if it had an exclamation mark after it.) The book was <em>Gestures</em> by Yannis Ristos, a poetry collection I am still in love with. How did she know I would love it? It wasn’t just an ordinary love either. At home I copied Ritsos poems over and over in loopy script, drawing little flowers and cartoons in the margins. I told Carol I wanted to become a poet just like Yannis Ritsos. Never mind that I was an adolescent girl from rural Virginia, and he was an old&#0160;man from Greece, and the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize. Years later she&#0160;recommended Murakami to me, a writer I adore but whom she could not abide. <em>Explain him to me</em>, she would say, hands on her hips. And I would try. What laughs we had! &#0160;I could go on and on, but I will stop for now . . .&#0160;</p> <p>I can’t imagine what it would be like to own a bookshop in this era of Kindles and online shopping, but I know it would take someone with the kind of gifts Carol possessed to make it work. She was one of those holdouts who still believed in the integrity of physical books and bookshops. She saw books and her shop as a valuable part of the community, a way of bringing people together in mind and body and spirit. She is deeply missed.</p> <p>&#0160;<em>Nin Andrews&#39; next collection of poetry, Miss August, is due out in May. You can sign up for her email (not sure if you want to do that!) or find out more about her by visiting <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">ninandrews.com</a></em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01bb0986d772970d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-23T22:56:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0986d770970dThe Star-Makers (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-24T18:15:04Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>Lately I’ve been thinking about how my father used to say, <em>There’s no such thing as the self-made man. Think about it. </em></p> <p>It was one of my father’s ongoing arguments with the world, with American optimism, and with the whole idea that anyone can succeed if he or she works hard enough. (My father grew up during the Depression. And, as he put it, his own father lost his shirt. As a young girl I always pictured my&#0160;grandfather shirtless.) My mother would simply roll her eyes once Dad got started. And I would think of one of my favorite books, <em>Harold and the Purple Crayon, </em>which I re-titled, <em>Harold and the Purple Wand</em>.</p> <p><em>Harold is self-made</em>, I would say. <em>Harold can draw the world and make it into anything he wants&#0160;because he has a purple wand. </em>(Was I the only one that noticed it wasn’t a crayon Harold held?)</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3a25a970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Harold Wings" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3a25a970b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3a25a970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Harold Wings" /></a>Alone in my room, I daydreamed about what I would do with a purple wand. I drew endless pictures in purple. Sometimes I imagined making myself into a girl with wings. (Who doesn’t want to fly?) Other times a star.</p> <p>My father, an artist and architect, took great interest in my artwork. But he wasn’t a fan of the Harold stories, or of my purple sketches. I would try to shield my paper to keep him away. Once, he pointed out that even Harold didn’t make <em>himself</em> into a star. He could only draw stars. Or make others into stars. (He was, back then, a bit too philosophical for my child-mind.)</p> <p>In spite of his criticism, I spent days&#0160;drawing purple girls, imagining myself as a kind of Haroldina, who wore glasses just as I did, but who lived in a world I could only dream of.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0986d732970d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Harold Star" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0986d732970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0986d732970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Harold Star" /></a>As an architect, my father took on many apprentices in his day. He spent hours both going over their blueprints and introducing them to builders and potential clients. He told me once that he never felt fully credited or thanked for his help. After his funeral, one of the architects he trained told me what a pain-in-the-ass my dad was. Without asking, my father would correct his blueprints, and he never thought anything anyone else drew was quite right. But his influence, this man added, is still present in all that he designs. And if he had not had him as a teacher, he would not have become the architect he is today.</p> <p>I think of my father when I think of all the people who have helped me and other poets and writers, all of those who are the bearers of purple wands in the literary world, who have made others into stars, who have changed the career paths of other poets and writers, often without bringing much attention to themselves. I am thinking of reviewers, editors, anthologists, book sellers, interviewers, translators, social media divas, those who run reading series, and all those that buy books, or who take the time to love and share poetry.</p> <p>Given stardom, many writers simply bask in the light. They don’t think of all those who helped them shine. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t grateful. I think most of us just don’t quite know how to say thanks. Or how to say thank you enough. Because there is no enough.</p> <p>So I thought I’d do a series of blog posts next week on just a few of the star-makers in the poetry world: a few of the reviewers, anthologists, editors, YOUTUBE reviewers, book sellers, and translators who have made others’ literary lives possible—and even wonderful at times.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews&#39;&#0160;is the author of several&#0160;books including Why God Is a Woman, Our Lady of the Orgasm, and Southern Comfort. Her next collection, Miss August, will be published in May, 2017. You can find her and even sign up for her email (seriously?) by going to <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">ninandrews.com.</a></em></p> <p>Lately I’ve been thinking about how my father used to say, <em>There’s no such thing as the self-made man. Think about it. </em></p> <p>It was one of my father’s ongoing arguments with the world, with American optimism, and with the whole idea that anyone can succeed if he or she works hard enough. (My father grew up during the Depression. And, as he put it, his own father lost his shirt. As a young girl I always pictured my&#0160;grandfather shirtless.) My mother would simply roll her eyes once Dad got started. And I would think of one of my favorite books, <em>Harold and the Purple Crayon, </em>which I re-titled, <em>Harold and the Purple Wand</em>.</p> <p><em>Harold is self-made</em>, I would say. <em>Harold can draw the world and make it into anything he wants&#0160;because he has a purple wand. </em>(Was I the only one that noticed it wasn’t a crayon Harold held?)</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3a25a970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Harold Wings" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3a25a970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e3a25a970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Harold Wings" /></a>Alone in my room, I daydreamed about what I would do with a purple wand. I drew endless pictures in purple. Sometimes I imagined making myself into a girl with wings. (Who doesn’t want to fly?) Other times a star.</p> <p>My father, an artist and architect, took great interest in my artwork. But he wasn’t a fan of the Harold stories, or of my purple sketches. I would try to shield my paper to keep him away. Once, he pointed out that even Harold didn’t make <em>himself</em> into a star. He could only draw stars. Or make others into stars. (He was, back then, a bit too philosophical for my child-mind.)</p> <p>In spite of his criticism, I spent days&#0160;drawing purple girls, imagining myself as a kind of Haroldina, who wore glasses just as I did, but who lived in a world I could only dream of.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0986d732970d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Harold Star" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0986d732970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0986d732970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Harold Star" /></a>As an architect, my father took on many apprentices in his day. He spent hours both going over their blueprints and introducing them to builders and potential clients. He told me once that he never felt fully credited or thanked for his help. After his funeral, one of the architects he trained told me what a pain-in-the-ass my dad was. Without asking, my father would correct his blueprints, and he never thought anything anyone else drew was quite right. But his influence, this man added, is still present in all that he designs. And if he had not had him as a teacher, he would not have become the architect he is today.</p> <p>I think of my father when I think of all the people who have helped me and other poets and writers, all of those who are the bearers of purple wands in the literary world, who have made others into stars, who have changed the career paths of other poets and writers, often without bringing much attention to themselves. I am thinking of reviewers, editors, anthologists, book sellers, interviewers, translators, social media divas, those who run reading series, and all those that buy books, or who take the time to love and share poetry.</p> <p>Given stardom, many writers simply bask in the light. They don’t think of all those who helped them shine. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t grateful. I think most of us just don’t quite know how to say thanks. Or how to say thank you enough. Because there is no enough.</p> <p>So I thought I’d do a series of blog posts next week on just a few of the star-makers in the poetry world: a few of the reviewers, anthologists, editors, YOUTUBE reviewers, book sellers, and translators who have made others’ literary lives possible—and even wonderful at times.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews&#39;&#0160;is the author of several&#0160;books including Why God Is a Woman, Our Lady of the Orgasm, and Southern Comfort. Her next collection, Miss August, will be published in May, 2017. You can find her and even sign up for her email (seriously?) by going to <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">ninandrews.com.</a></em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d26ab855970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-03-14T18:36:45Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26ab853970cAbout Poetry Readings and the Poets, Shara McCallum & Jan Beatty [by Nin Andrews]http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-03-14T18:36:45Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently I was asked by a young poet what I thought of poetry readings. Do I enjoy giving them? she asked. She was looking for advice, worrying about giving a reading for her forthcoming debut collection. <em>Yes,</em> I said after some hesitation, but I don’t think I was entirely convincing.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">There are, after all, many kinds of poetry readings. On the downside, there are those&#0160;</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">readings at bookstores where the microphone is next to the cappuccino machine. And the readings at bars where you’re competing, not just with drunks, but also with a jukebox and sporting events like March Madness. There is also the much-desired poetry reading at a&#0160;university where you are getting paid a nice check, which seems a miracle in and of itself, but then, it turns out that Bruce Springteen is invited to play on the same evening you’re reading. So you end up standing up in front of a single apologetic&#0160;professor, a miserable handful of English students who are desperate for extra credit, and rows and rows of aluminum chairs.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>But is it worth it? </em>my young poet-friend asked. <em>Do you enjoy <u>going</u> to readings?</em> Again I hesitated, thinking of Koch’s poem, “ Fresh Air.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Ah, poets, I thought. There are so many wonderful poets who give great readings, and often for little pay or for free. Some I personally prefer to Springsteen. But then of course, there are the poets who don’t read very well, or worse, who give poetry readings a bad name. Fellow poets talk about them in low voices, afraid that their demands and bad habits might be contagious. After all, we poets need to keep our reputations clean. We lean close to hear about the award-winning poet who was flown from a distant coast, at great expense, but refused to read more than three poems. Or the other one, equally famous, who always refused to dine or meet with students. Or yet another, who might be compared to the princess and the pea—no matter what accommodations were found, they were never good enough. And of course there are the tales of the famous poets like Dylan Thomas, who arrived so drunk to one reading, he almost fell off the stage.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I know, I probably shouldn’t talk of such things in a public place like this. Because those are the exceptions. I have attended so many amazing poetry readings . . . readings by the likes of Tim Seibles, Denise Duhamel, Mark Halliday, Jill Allyn Rosser, Naomi Shihab Nye, Claire Bateman, David Lehman, and I could go on. I remember one hysterical readings at the University of Virginia, back in 1981, where Charles Simic and James Tate read together. Tate, wonderful James Tate, burst into laughter, tears streaming down his face. Simic had to complete the reading for him. The only thing as entertaining, I think, was listening to Jennifer Knox read “Chicken Bucket.” I would add that Jennifer Knox reading anything is a delight.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And now I am thinking of my recent reading at Shippensburg University where I was lucky enough to read with two brilliants poets, Jan Beatty and Shara McCallum. The one-and-only Nicole Santalucia hosted the event. Everything about the reading was, well, nothing short of uplifting. What can I say? It reminded me of what I love about poets and poetry.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">It also made me wonder, <em>What made that reading so special?</em> The first answer is, Nicole Santalucia. She is one of those born teachers of poetry. Wherever she goes, students follow. I picture her as the Pied Piper of Shippensburg University. Maybe I should say, the Poetry Piper instead. The second answer is Shara McCallum and Jan Beatty. Both woman are fabulous poets and readers, as well as warm, engaging, dynamic, powerful, enlightening, funny, generous . . . I could go on and on.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Sitting here at my desk this morning, I am reading and rereading their books (whose lovely covers my photos don&#39;t do justice to), hearing their poems in their melodic voices. Like this one by Shara, from her collection, <em>Madwoman</em>, which she opened with her poem, &quot;Memory:&quot;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> <br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26ab496970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Shara book" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26ab496970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26ab496970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Shara book" /></a></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I bruise the way the most secreted,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">most tender part of a thigh exposed</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">purples then blues. No spit-shine shoes,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m dirt you can’t wash from your feet.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Wherever you go, know I am the wind</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">accosting the trees, the howling night</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">of your sea. Try to leave me, I’ll pin you</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">between a rock and a hard place; will hunt you,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">even as you erase your tracks</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">with the tail ends of your skirt. You think</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m gristle, begging to be chewed?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">No, my love: I’m bone. Rather; the sound</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">bone makes when it snaps. That dirty</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">lingering in you, like ruin.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And then there is the beautiful poem, which she would read in her Rasta voice, explaining that she grew up in Jamaica, that her parents were Rastafarian:</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Lot’s Wife to Madwoman</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Like everyone else yu going get tired of mi.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">as happen to all a we, my life been reduce</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">to one sad, tawdry cliché, Gal, just</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">lef mi in peace where yu find mi.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Mi never trouble myself with other vultures</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">who come before. Why yu fancy</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">yu special? Oh, yu favour mi more</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">yu say, with yu whole self twist-up,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">twist-up with regret. Lawd, how you come</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">so fool-fool? So big and boasy</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">to presume yu can fling yuslef</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">inna anyone story yu choose. Yu feel sey</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">this is play, ee? Then yu mussa forget</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">the crucial part: I turned to salt.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Jan Beatty anchored the evening, reading in her beautiful, understated and hypnotic voice from her new collection<em>, Jackknife</em>.&#0160;&#0160; I could listen to Jan read for hours.</span></p> <p><br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> Here are two of the poems she read on that wonderful evening.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><br /><br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e05145970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Jan B 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e05145970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e05145970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Jan B 2" /></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Asylum</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>after Roselia Asylum and Maternity Hospital, corner of Cliff and Manilla</em></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the house I was born in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Look at it. Asylum.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Narrate it:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Notice the sloping cornice, look at the curved windows, etc.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the house I was born in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The cast-iron balconies/not wide enough for bodies.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Look at the photos:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">3 stories, 8 front windows and a wide door.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Dark red brick/inlaid with brown stone.</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Women’s bodies/expelling/banishing/</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Leaving the babies there.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Look at the photos, include the photos.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Delicious</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m looking for clothes to put my body in. At the family gathering, my sisters-in-law wear sundresses and strappy sandals, which are lovely, &amp; it’s sunny out, but the Kenneth Cole men’s shirts I got on sale seem out of place, like the way I need to wear a lot of metal that can double as weapons if needed &amp; ever since I cut off all my hair years ago to avoid being mistaken for a woman who wants a man in Dockers, I search websites for men with elegant small feet, who I imagine to be my cosmic brothers, then one sister-in-law talks about the new baby, the new baby, so I switch to the men’s talk about the new Camaro, the new Camaro, &amp; the NFL’s jacked-up penalties on hitting, but always swing back to the women, who have a watery way about them I love, who are talking about the zesty seasoning for the bean salad, which is, in fact, delicious.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And then there is this poem by Jan Beatty, which she didn’t read, but which makes me laugh. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Low-Rider</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Nikki’s in the kitchen of the artist residency,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">talking about merkins.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>What?</em> I say.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>You know, they’re kind of like pussy wigs</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Made of faux fur, sort of like wearing earring—</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Cute, but I’m not sure who wears them.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">6 1/2 months pregnant, she’s jump-talking:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>I think of my baby like it’s an arm.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>That’s how liberal I am about it.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t know what she means, but</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I find out that Kate Winslet wore on</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">When she filmed <em>The Reader</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Kate tells Allure: <em>Because of years of waxing,</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>as all of us girls know, it doesn’t come back</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>quite the way it used to</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Nikki and I drive to the art gallery to see</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Rose, the low-rider, painting her ’69 Impala.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Rose, with her dusty boots and sideways cap</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">makes me stop thinking. Nikki keeps talking:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>I can’t see down there because I’m knocked up,</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>I usually trim it, but I can’t have a relationship</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>With my parts right now</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I can tell Rose thinks we’re a couple, that</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The baby bump in Nikki’s black dress is ours.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>The Daily Beast</em> says it’s usually beaver pelts,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">while men wear loops and chains, more</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">like a fur codpiece, and</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">everyone’s wearing them:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Patricia Arquette in <em>Human Nature</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Rooney Mara in <em>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Samantha in <em>Sex and the City</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The woman cadaver in <em>Boardwalk Empire</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">keeping it real for the Prohibition era,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and I wonder, is the hair supposed to look dead, too?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m watching Rose, the spray-painted Impala.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">She says, <em>I had to rebuild the carburetor</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>this morning</em>, and I’m nodding,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Mary-Louise Parker in <em>Angels in America</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Jake Gyllenhal in <em>Love and Other Drugs</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Gretchen Mol (all skin) in <em>The Notorious Betti Page</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">But so many questions: what about industrial glue</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and pelvic burns? What about the chipotle</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">chicken melt with guacamole ad right above</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">the “Merkins for Stars” article? And why</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Evan Rachel Wood said no in <em>Mildred Pierce</em>?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And I’m thinking about Rose,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">what would she want?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Thinking about the word: <em>postiche,</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">her thick lips, the tattooed X’s</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">on her tough-woman fingers.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently I was asked by a young poet what I thought of poetry readings. Do I enjoy giving them? she asked. She was looking for advice, worrying about giving a reading for her forthcoming debut collection. <em>Yes,</em> I said after some hesitation, but I don’t think I was entirely convincing.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">There are, after all, many kinds of poetry readings. On the downside, there are those&#0160;</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">readings at bookstores where the microphone is next to the cappuccino machine. And the readings at bars where you’re competing, not just with drunks, but also with a jukebox and sporting events like March Madness. There is also the much-desired poetry reading at a&#0160;university where you are getting paid a nice check, which seems a miracle in and of itself, but then, it turns out that Bruce Springteen is invited to play on the same evening you’re reading. So you end up standing up in front of a single apologetic&#0160;professor, a miserable handful of English students who are desperate for extra credit, and rows and rows of aluminum chairs.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>But is it worth it? </em>my young poet-friend asked. <em>Do you enjoy <u>going</u> to readings?</em> Again I hesitated, thinking of Koch’s poem, “ Fresh Air.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Ah, poets, I thought. There are so many wonderful poets who give great readings, and often for little pay or for free. Some I personally prefer to Springsteen. But then of course, there are the poets who don’t read very well, or worse, who give poetry readings a bad name. Fellow poets talk about them in low voices, afraid that their demands and bad habits might be contagious. After all, we poets need to keep our reputations clean. We lean close to hear about the award-winning poet who was flown from a distant coast, at great expense, but refused to read more than three poems. Or the other one, equally famous, who always refused to dine or meet with students. Or yet another, who might be compared to the princess and the pea—no matter what accommodations were found, they were never good enough. And of course there are the tales of the famous poets like Dylan Thomas, who arrived so drunk to one reading, he almost fell off the stage.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I know, I probably shouldn’t talk of such things in a public place like this. Because those are the exceptions. I have attended so many amazing poetry readings . . . readings by the likes of Tim Seibles, Denise Duhamel, Mark Halliday, Jill Allyn Rosser, Naomi Shihab Nye, Claire Bateman, David Lehman, and I could go on. I remember one hysterical readings at the University of Virginia, back in 1981, where Charles Simic and James Tate read together. Tate, wonderful James Tate, burst into laughter, tears streaming down his face. Simic had to complete the reading for him. The only thing as entertaining, I think, was listening to Jennifer Knox read “Chicken Bucket.” I would add that Jennifer Knox reading anything is a delight.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And now I am thinking of my recent reading at Shippensburg University where I was lucky enough to read with two brilliants poets, Jan Beatty and Shara McCallum. The one-and-only Nicole Santalucia hosted the event. Everything about the reading was, well, nothing short of uplifting. What can I say? It reminded me of what I love about poets and poetry.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">It also made me wonder, <em>What made that reading so special?</em> The first answer is, Nicole Santalucia. She is one of those born teachers of poetry. Wherever she goes, students follow. I picture her as the Pied Piper of Shippensburg University. Maybe I should say, the Poetry Piper instead. The second answer is Shara McCallum and Jan Beatty. Both woman are fabulous poets and readers, as well as warm, engaging, dynamic, powerful, enlightening, funny, generous . . . I could go on and on.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Sitting here at my desk this morning, I am reading and rereading their books (whose lovely covers my photos don&#39;t do justice to), hearing their poems in their melodic voices. Like this one by Shara, from her collection, <em>Madwoman</em>, which she opened with her poem, &quot;Memory:&quot;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> <br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26ab496970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Shara book" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26ab496970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26ab496970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Shara book" /></a></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I bruise the way the most secreted,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">most tender part of a thigh exposed</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">purples then blues. No spit-shine shoes,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m dirt you can’t wash from your feet.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Wherever you go, know I am the wind</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">accosting the trees, the howling night</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">of your sea. Try to leave me, I’ll pin you</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">between a rock and a hard place; will hunt you,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">even as you erase your tracks</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">with the tail ends of your skirt. You think</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m gristle, begging to be chewed?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">No, my love: I’m bone. Rather; the sound</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">bone makes when it snaps. That dirty</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">lingering in you, like ruin.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And then there is the beautiful poem, which she would read in her Rasta voice, explaining that she grew up in Jamaica, that her parents were Rastafarian:</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Lot’s Wife to Madwoman</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Like everyone else yu going get tired of mi.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">as happen to all a we, my life been reduce</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">to one sad, tawdry cliché, Gal, just</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">lef mi in peace where yu find mi.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Mi never trouble myself with other vultures</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">who come before. Why yu fancy</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">yu special? Oh, yu favour mi more</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">yu say, with yu whole self twist-up,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">twist-up with regret. Lawd, how you come</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">so fool-fool? So big and boasy</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">to presume yu can fling yuslef</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">inna anyone story yu choose. Yu feel sey</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">this is play, ee? Then yu mussa forget</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">the crucial part: I turned to salt.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Jan Beatty anchored the evening, reading in her beautiful, understated and hypnotic voice from her new collection<em>, Jackknife</em>.&#0160;&#0160; I could listen to Jan read for hours.</span></p> <p><br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> Here are two of the poems she read on that wonderful evening.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><br /><br /> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e05145970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Jan B 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e05145970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8e05145970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Jan B 2" /></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Asylum</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>after Roselia Asylum and Maternity Hospital, corner of Cliff and Manilla</em></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the house I was born in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Look at it. Asylum.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Narrate it:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Notice the sloping cornice, look at the curved windows, etc.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the house I was born in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The cast-iron balconies/not wide enough for bodies.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Look at the photos:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">3 stories, 8 front windows and a wide door.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Dark red brick/inlaid with brown stone.</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Women’s bodies/expelling/banishing/</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Leaving the babies there.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Look at the photos, include the photos.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Delicious</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m looking for clothes to put my body in. At the family gathering, my sisters-in-law wear sundresses and strappy sandals, which are lovely, &amp; it’s sunny out, but the Kenneth Cole men’s shirts I got on sale seem out of place, like the way I need to wear a lot of metal that can double as weapons if needed &amp; ever since I cut off all my hair years ago to avoid being mistaken for a woman who wants a man in Dockers, I search websites for men with elegant small feet, who I imagine to be my cosmic brothers, then one sister-in-law talks about the new baby, the new baby, so I switch to the men’s talk about the new Camaro, the new Camaro, &amp; the NFL’s jacked-up penalties on hitting, but always swing back to the women, who have a watery way about them I love, who are talking about the zesty seasoning for the bean salad, which is, in fact, delicious.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And then there is this poem by Jan Beatty, which she didn’t read, but which makes me laugh. &#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Low-Rider</strong></span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Nikki’s in the kitchen of the artist residency,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">talking about merkins.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>What?</em> I say.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>You know, they’re kind of like pussy wigs</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Made of faux fur, sort of like wearing earring—</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Cute, but I’m not sure who wears them.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">6 1/2 months pregnant, she’s jump-talking:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>I think of my baby like it’s an arm.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>That’s how liberal I am about it.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t know what she means, but</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I find out that Kate Winslet wore on</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">When she filmed <em>The Reader</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Kate tells Allure: <em>Because of years of waxing,</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>as all of us girls know, it doesn’t come back</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>quite the way it used to</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Nikki and I drive to the art gallery to see</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Rose, the low-rider, painting her ’69 Impala.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Rose, with her dusty boots and sideways cap</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">makes me stop thinking. Nikki keeps talking:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>I can’t see down there because I’m knocked up,</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>I usually trim it, but I can’t have a relationship</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>With my parts right now</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I can tell Rose thinks we’re a couple, that</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The baby bump in Nikki’s black dress is ours.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>The Daily Beast</em> says it’s usually beaver pelts,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">while men wear loops and chains, more</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">like a fur codpiece, and</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">everyone’s wearing them:</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Patricia Arquette in <em>Human Nature</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Rooney Mara in <em>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Samantha in <em>Sex and the City</em>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The woman cadaver in <em>Boardwalk Empire</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">keeping it real for the Prohibition era,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and I wonder, is the hair supposed to look dead, too?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m watching Rose, the spray-painted Impala.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">She says, <em>I had to rebuild the carburetor</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>this morning</em>, and I’m nodding,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Mary-Louise Parker in <em>Angels in America</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Jake Gyllenhal in <em>Love and Other Drugs</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Gretchen Mol (all skin) in <em>The Notorious Betti Page</em>,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">But so many questions: what about industrial glue</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and pelvic burns? What about the chipotle</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">chicken melt with guacamole ad right above</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">the “Merkins for Stars” article? And why</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Evan Rachel Wood said no in <em>Mildred Pierce</em>?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And I’m thinking about Rose,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">what would she want?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Thinking about the word: <em>postiche,</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">her thick lips, the tattooed X’s</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">on her tough-woman fingers.</span></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d26054ae970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-02-14T19:54:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d26054ac970cHappy Valentine's Day (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-02-14T19:54:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09792340970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Burn, %22A Red, Red Rose%22" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09792340970d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09792340970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Burn, %22A Red, Red Rose%22" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Happy Valentine’s Day! Sick with a cold I am, but I still love this day along with all of the trappings—the gold-embossed Cupids, roses, candles, slinky lingerie, sonnets, and chocolate. Who can resist the chocolate? And to think the day was invented by Chaucer. Perhaps we poets should invent a few more days worthy of celebration? I vote for a day for dreaming, or at least sleeping-in as long as possible. No peeking at the clock. In fact, no clocks allowed. Or how about a day of kindness, or at least of caring for others including the woebegone, the piqued, the miffed, the melancholy, and the dejected. Or maybe something simpler—a day for collecting words and expressions you loved once but no longer hear or use, words like suasive, addlepated, spindle-legged, vulpine, folderol, and cattywampus. I have to think, but given a day, I&#0160;think we&#0160;could&#0160;have a regular word party. And expressions--yes, expressions like: <em>Where in the Dickens is it? </em>Or, <em>You&#39;re&#0160;about as busy as a cow&#39;s tail in summer time</em>. Or, <em>I do declare.</em> And, <em>Do go on,</em> meaning, <em>You wanna dig that grave a little deeper?</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09792340970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Burn, %22A Red, Red Rose%22" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09792340970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09792340970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Burn, %22A Red, Red Rose%22" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Happy Valentine’s Day! Sick with a cold I am, but I still love this day along with all of the trappings—the gold-embossed Cupids, roses, candles, slinky lingerie, sonnets, and chocolate. Who can resist the chocolate? And to think the day was invented by Chaucer. Perhaps we poets should invent a few more days worthy of celebration? I vote for a day for dreaming, or at least sleeping-in as long as possible. No peeking at the clock. In fact, no clocks allowed. Or how about a day of kindness, or at least of caring for others including the woebegone, the piqued, the miffed, the melancholy, and the dejected. Or maybe something simpler—a day for collecting words and expressions you loved once but no longer hear or use, words like suasive, addlepated, spindle-legged, vulpine, folderol, and cattywampus. I have to think, but given a day, I&#0160;think we&#0160;could&#0160;have a regular word party. And expressions--yes, expressions like: <em>Where in the Dickens is it? </em>Or, <em>You&#39;re&#0160;about as busy as a cow&#39;s tail in summer time</em>. Or, <em>I do declare.</em> And, <em>Do go on,</em> meaning, <em>You wanna dig that grave a little deeper?</em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c8cd9b21970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-24T19:30:01Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd9b1f970bNancy Mitchell, Poet and Painter (by Nin Andrews) http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-24T19:30:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>Today, I am continuing my discussion of&#0160;poets who paint (or painters who write poetry) by interviewing Nancy Mitchell. I first encountered Nancy in her capacity as an Associate Editor of&#0160;<a href="http://plumepoetry.com">Plume</a>, one of my all-time favorite literary journals. (Really, how could I resist a journal named after a character in Henri Michaux’s prose poetry? And if you don&#39;t know Michaux&#39;s Plume, check out&#0160;<a href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2013/06/plume-goes-to-casablanca-by-henri-michaux-trans-david-lehman.html">this wonderful example</a>&#0160;of a Plume poem.&#0160;) I was surprised to discover that Nancy paints in addition to writing, teaching, and editing. (In order, spaced throughout the interview, are&#0160;her paintings, “Anasazi/Stranger,” &quot;Atonement,&quot; &quot;Zac,&quot; and &quot;Red Horse Red.&quot;)</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970b919970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Nancy painting blue" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970b919970d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970b919970d-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Nancy painting blue" /></a></p> <p>I think of Nancy Mitchell as a kind of Zen poet. Her short and visual poems are wake-up calls to the small and seeming ordinary moments in a day. They acknowledge the yearning of the heart and soul and the inevitable presence of loss. She accomplishes so much in so little space, as in&#0160;this painful but beautiful poem, “The Leaving”:</p> <p>To steady me,</p> <p>to keep me from rising—</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>that last night with him, lying down,</p> <p>he placed his hand on the space</p> <p>where my ribs furl back like wings</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>to steady me,</p> <p>to keep me from rising.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And then there is&#0160;this simple poem, &quot;Tuesday Morning&quot;:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Her breath fogs the window,</p> <p>the window clears,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>fogs the window,</p> <p>it clears again.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And I love this&#0160;slightly longer poem, “What About”:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;sushi with the Merkles</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;merlot or cabernet would be fine with Martin</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;taking Max for a stroll at sunset</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;taking Max</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;dinner with the dean</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;coffee with Don at ten</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;he said he’d call by 11</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;hopping in the shower at 11:15</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; dropping the whole thing</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; she doesn’t like being on top</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;mayonnaise method</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; of removing water stain</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; from wood</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; Mother’s face</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; behind</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a comic book</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; Brother’s face</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; lime neon bra</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; with matching panties</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a doll with my face</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a full-time phone lover</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a phone life</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a phone liar</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a phony</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; the silence of cold spoons</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>My first question for Nancy:&#0160;How do you do it? How do you balance your time between painting and writing?</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>Ah, Nin. I’m totally inept at any kind of time management.</p> <p>I always got unsatisfactory marks on “Uses <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6bf970d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Nancy painting" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6bf970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6bf970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Nancy painting" /></a><br />Time Wisely” on my elementary school report card. I have no idea what “wisely” meant—I mean, who is to say— or how to achieve it, although I’ve earnestly tried to imitate those more efficient, enviable Do-Bees. Oh the “To-Do” lists made and left behind, unchecked, the grim resolutions!</p> <p>But, now that I think about it, if I tracked the hours I might find a balance of attention or energy between the two, although it most likely would be heavy on the poetry side. What usually happens is that when I hit a wall with writing, or finish a project, I’ll need something more physical, tactile, and I’ll go fool around in my basement studio.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> <strong>How does the inspiration for a poem differ from that of a painting?</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>In most, but not all, instances, poems are triggered by an external source—something read, overheard, “overseen” then I work backwards to identify the corresponding feeling. With painting, I have a vague feeling, and start fooling around with material until I’m closer to finding an image.</p> <p><strong>NA: And is there any overlap between your paintings and poems? In other words, do you ever have a poem that has a painting that goes with it?</strong></p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257c9cf970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Zac" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257c9cf970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257c9cf970c-200wi" style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Zac" /></a><br />NM:</strong> When I was working on the poems about a close friend’s struggle with addiction and recovery (12 years!) for my second book, <em>Grief Hut</em> (which is much more narrative than the poems in <em>The Near Surround</em> featured here<em>)</em> I did a couple of spontaneous portraits of him—it was as if there was an excess of dark, undifferentiated energy that needed to find some form. A wee scary, those paintings.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;<strong>NA: How did you become a painter? A poet?</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NM:</strong> My father, an oil-business executive, was madly in love with and very knowledgeable about painting, and his passion was contagious. My siblings and I whiled away many a Sunday afternoon in art museums with him. There were always art books opened everywhere, and even before he made his fortune and could buy original art, he’d hang reproductions around the house so art was a daily presence in our lives. As an undergrad Art History minor, I took some basic art classes, but it wasn’t until my three kids were successfully launched that I had time to experiment. I came to poetry belatedly, in my late thirties, when I fell in love with a poet and poetry—a packaged deal. &#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA: If you had to pick between panting and poetry, which would you choose? And why?</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>Hmm… although I paint, would never presume to call myself a painter. I don’t have the art school creds, and although I do exhibit from time to time, I don’t push myself to deadlines. I don’t think I have what I could call a body of work. Because I don’t hold myself (or am held to) the same juried standards that I do with writing, I’m less judgmental and accepting, and painting is more playful, and extremely pleasurable. I don’t procrastinate the way I do with writing— a blank canvas doesn’t accuse me. (However, as an aside, as a result of painting, I’ve come to see procrastination as part of the creative process, a storing up of material, of energy, a kettle of water on the lowest simmer.)&#0160;&#0160; I wish I could have this same pleasure with writing. Is it metaphorically significant that my study is on the second floor and my studio is in the basement? Maybe I should flip them? But, ultimately, it is poetry upon which I most humbly, doggedly, bring my feeble powers to bear— for better or worse.</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6d9970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Nancy horse painting" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6d9970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6d9970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Nancy horse painting" /></a>NA: What is your definition of a perfect poem? A perfect painting? Or a perfect day? Or is there such a thing?&#0160;</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>A perfect painting is one that has a headwind of emotional energy behind it and is fully realized in one, say, four-hour session. A perfect poem is one that keeps calling me back and rewarding my diligence. A perfect day is one where I feel I’ve brought my full attention to whatever is at hand—and that includes all methods of procrastination.</p> <p><strong>NA: Do you think of art as a habit, a choice, or an act of faith? Either, or, or neither?</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>I read somewhere that the most powerful form of reinforcement is intermittent, and that’s the reason gambling is so addictive. Maybe creating art</p> <p>is like gambling, in that you never know when and what will pay off, but you’ve got to play to win?</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;You are also the master interviewer for Plume Magazine. &#0160;I wondered if you could say a few words about that?</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257ca4f970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_6258" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257ca4f970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257ca4f970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_6258" /></a>NM:</strong> Master-that’s awfully nice of you! A couple of years ago, <a href="Nancy Mitchell is a 2012 Pushcart Prize winner and the author of The Near Surround (Four Way Books, 2002) and Grief Hut (Cervena Barva Press, 2009). Her recent poems appear, or will soon appear, in Poetry Daily, Agni, Washington Square Review, Green Mountains Review, Tar River Poetry, Columbia College Literary Review, and Thrush, among others. She is the co-editor of and contributor to Plume Interviews I, forthcoming in February, 2017. Mitchell teaches at Salisbury University and serves as the Associate Editor of Special Features for Plume.">Danny Lawless</a>, <em>Plume’s</em> editor extraordinaire, invited me to serve as Associate Editor of Special Features, and it’s been a lot of fun. Years ago I had a live jazz show on a local public radio station. I’d invite guest artists—musicians such as Blues songwriter/singer/guitarist Chris English, jazz guitarist Van Williamson and writers such as Jeffrey Skinner—to come on the show and play or read. Interspersed, we’d have a loose chatty, sort of <em>Dinner with Andre</em> interview, and I really wanted the Plume interviews to have that same spontaneous, live quality. So, if the interviewee, whose seven poems were being featured, was on board, rather than send a list of questions I’d send a salvo question. We’d chat back and forth via e-mail over a week or so, and see where we ended up. The February edition of Plume includes an interview with David Lehman. My fifteen (?) interviews, along with four others by different interviewers are forthcoming in <em>Plume Interviews I,</em> which I co-edited with Danny Lawless. My interview with you, which was a blast, appears in it.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160; <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd9856970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Nancy Mitchell" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd9856970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd9856970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Nancy Mitchell" /></a></p> <p><strong>Nancy Mitchell</strong> is a 2012 Pushcart Prize winner and the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Near-Surround-Nancy-Mitchell/dp/1884800424/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1485285959&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Nancy+Mitchell+poetry+book+THE+NEAR+SURROUND"><em>The Near Surround&#0160;</em></a>(Four Way Books, 2002) and <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Grief-Hut-Nancy-Mitchell/dp/0615257976/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1485286066&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Nancy+Mitchell+poetry+book+Grief+Hut">Grief Hut&#0160;</a></em>(Cervena Barva Press, 2009). Her recent poems appear, or will soon appear, in <em>Poetry Daily,</em> <em>Agni, Washington Square Review, Green Mountains Review,&#0160;Tar River Poetry, Columbia College Literary Review, and Thrush</em>,&#0160;among others. She is the co-editor of and contributor to <em>Plume Interviews I,</em> forthcoming in February, 2017. Mitchell teaches at Salisbury University and serves as the Associate Editor of Special Features for&#0160;<em>Plume.<br /></em></p> <p>Today, I am continuing my discussion of&#0160;poets who paint (or painters who write poetry) by interviewing Nancy Mitchell. I first encountered Nancy in her capacity as an Associate Editor of&#0160;<a href="http://plumepoetry.com">Plume</a>, one of my all-time favorite literary journals. (Really, how could I resist a journal named after a character in Henri Michaux’s prose poetry? And if you don&#39;t know Michaux&#39;s Plume, check out&#0160;<a href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2013/06/plume-goes-to-casablanca-by-henri-michaux-trans-david-lehman.html">this wonderful example</a>&#0160;of a Plume poem.&#0160;) I was surprised to discover that Nancy paints in addition to writing, teaching, and editing. (In order, spaced throughout the interview, are&#0160;her paintings, “Anasazi/Stranger,” &quot;Atonement,&quot; &quot;Zac,&quot; and &quot;Red Horse Red.&quot;)</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970b919970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Nancy painting blue" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970b919970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970b919970d-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Nancy painting blue" /></a></p> <p>I think of Nancy Mitchell as a kind of Zen poet. Her short and visual poems are wake-up calls to the small and seeming ordinary moments in a day. They acknowledge the yearning of the heart and soul and the inevitable presence of loss. She accomplishes so much in so little space, as in&#0160;this painful but beautiful poem, “The Leaving”:</p> <p>To steady me,</p> <p>to keep me from rising—</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>that last night with him, lying down,</p> <p>he placed his hand on the space</p> <p>where my ribs furl back like wings</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>to steady me,</p> <p>to keep me from rising.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And then there is&#0160;this simple poem, &quot;Tuesday Morning&quot;:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Her breath fogs the window,</p> <p>the window clears,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>fogs the window,</p> <p>it clears again.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>And I love this&#0160;slightly longer poem, “What About”:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;sushi with the Merkles</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;merlot or cabernet would be fine with Martin</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;taking Max for a stroll at sunset</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;taking Max</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;dinner with the dean</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;coffee with Don at ten</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;he said he’d call by 11</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;hopping in the shower at 11:15</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; dropping the whole thing</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; she doesn’t like being on top</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160; &#0160;mayonnaise method</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; of removing water stain</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; from wood</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; Mother’s face</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; behind</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a comic book</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; Brother’s face</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What about</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; lime neon bra</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; with matching panties</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a doll with my face</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a full-time phone lover</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a phone life</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a phone liar</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; a phony</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160;&#0160; the silence of cold spoons</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>My first question for Nancy:&#0160;How do you do it? How do you balance your time between painting and writing?</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>Ah, Nin. I’m totally inept at any kind of time management.</p> <p>I always got unsatisfactory marks on “Uses <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6bf970d-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Nancy painting" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6bf970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6bf970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Nancy painting" /></a><br />Time Wisely” on my elementary school report card. I have no idea what “wisely” meant—I mean, who is to say— or how to achieve it, although I’ve earnestly tried to imitate those more efficient, enviable Do-Bees. Oh the “To-Do” lists made and left behind, unchecked, the grim resolutions!</p> <p>But, now that I think about it, if I tracked the hours I might find a balance of attention or energy between the two, although it most likely would be heavy on the poetry side. What usually happens is that when I hit a wall with writing, or finish a project, I’ll need something more physical, tactile, and I’ll go fool around in my basement studio.</p> <p><strong>NA:</strong> <strong>How does the inspiration for a poem differ from that of a painting?</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>In most, but not all, instances, poems are triggered by an external source—something read, overheard, “overseen” then I work backwards to identify the corresponding feeling. With painting, I have a vague feeling, and start fooling around with material until I’m closer to finding an image.</p> <p><strong>NA: And is there any overlap between your paintings and poems? In other words, do you ever have a poem that has a painting that goes with it?</strong></p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257c9cf970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Zac" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257c9cf970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257c9cf970c-200wi" style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Zac" /></a><br />NM:</strong> When I was working on the poems about a close friend’s struggle with addiction and recovery (12 years!) for my second book, <em>Grief Hut</em> (which is much more narrative than the poems in <em>The Near Surround</em> featured here<em>)</em> I did a couple of spontaneous portraits of him—it was as if there was an excess of dark, undifferentiated energy that needed to find some form. A wee scary, those paintings.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;<strong>NA: How did you become a painter? A poet?</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NM:</strong> My father, an oil-business executive, was madly in love with and very knowledgeable about painting, and his passion was contagious. My siblings and I whiled away many a Sunday afternoon in art museums with him. There were always art books opened everywhere, and even before he made his fortune and could buy original art, he’d hang reproductions around the house so art was a daily presence in our lives. As an undergrad Art History minor, I took some basic art classes, but it wasn’t until my three kids were successfully launched that I had time to experiment. I came to poetry belatedly, in my late thirties, when I fell in love with a poet and poetry—a packaged deal. &#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA: If you had to pick between panting and poetry, which would you choose? And why?</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>Hmm… although I paint, would never presume to call myself a painter. I don’t have the art school creds, and although I do exhibit from time to time, I don’t push myself to deadlines. I don’t think I have what I could call a body of work. Because I don’t hold myself (or am held to) the same juried standards that I do with writing, I’m less judgmental and accepting, and painting is more playful, and extremely pleasurable. I don’t procrastinate the way I do with writing— a blank canvas doesn’t accuse me. (However, as an aside, as a result of painting, I’ve come to see procrastination as part of the creative process, a storing up of material, of energy, a kettle of water on the lowest simmer.)&#0160;&#0160; I wish I could have this same pleasure with writing. Is it metaphorically significant that my study is on the second floor and my studio is in the basement? Maybe I should flip them? But, ultimately, it is poetry upon which I most humbly, doggedly, bring my feeble powers to bear— for better or worse.</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6d9970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Nancy horse painting" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6d9970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0970c6d9970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Nancy horse painting" /></a>NA: What is your definition of a perfect poem? A perfect painting? Or a perfect day? Or is there such a thing?&#0160;</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>A perfect painting is one that has a headwind of emotional energy behind it and is fully realized in one, say, four-hour session. A perfect poem is one that keeps calling me back and rewarding my diligence. A perfect day is one where I feel I’ve brought my full attention to whatever is at hand—and that includes all methods of procrastination.</p> <p><strong>NA: Do you think of art as a habit, a choice, or an act of faith? Either, or, or neither?</strong></p> <p><strong>NM:&#0160;</strong>I read somewhere that the most powerful form of reinforcement is intermittent, and that’s the reason gambling is so addictive. Maybe creating art</p> <p>is like gambling, in that you never know when and what will pay off, but you’ve got to play to win?</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA:&#0160;You are also the master interviewer for Plume Magazine. &#0160;I wondered if you could say a few words about that?</strong></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257ca4f970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="IMG_6258" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257ca4f970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d257ca4f970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IMG_6258" /></a>NM:</strong> Master-that’s awfully nice of you! A couple of years ago, <a href="Nancy Mitchell is a 2012 Pushcart Prize winner and the author of The Near Surround (Four Way Books, 2002) and Grief Hut (Cervena Barva Press, 2009). Her recent poems appear, or will soon appear, in Poetry Daily, Agni, Washington Square Review, Green Mountains Review, Tar River Poetry, Columbia College Literary Review, and Thrush, among others. She is the co-editor of and contributor to Plume Interviews I, forthcoming in February, 2017. Mitchell teaches at Salisbury University and serves as the Associate Editor of Special Features for Plume.">Danny Lawless</a>, <em>Plume’s</em> editor extraordinaire, invited me to serve as Associate Editor of Special Features, and it’s been a lot of fun. Years ago I had a live jazz show on a local public radio station. I’d invite guest artists—musicians such as Blues songwriter/singer/guitarist Chris English, jazz guitarist Van Williamson and writers such as Jeffrey Skinner—to come on the show and play or read. Interspersed, we’d have a loose chatty, sort of <em>Dinner with Andre</em> interview, and I really wanted the Plume interviews to have that same spontaneous, live quality. So, if the interviewee, whose seven poems were being featured, was on board, rather than send a list of questions I’d send a salvo question. We’d chat back and forth via e-mail over a week or so, and see where we ended up. The February edition of Plume includes an interview with David Lehman. My fifteen (?) interviews, along with four others by different interviewers are forthcoming in <em>Plume Interviews I,</em> which I co-edited with Danny Lawless. My interview with you, which was a blast, appears in it.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160; <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd9856970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Nancy Mitchell" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd9856970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd9856970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Nancy Mitchell" /></a></p> <p><strong>Nancy Mitchell</strong> is a 2012 Pushcart Prize winner and the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Near-Surround-Nancy-Mitchell/dp/1884800424/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1485285959&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Nancy+Mitchell+poetry+book+THE+NEAR+SURROUND"><em>The Near Surround&#0160;</em></a>(Four Way Books, 2002) and <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Grief-Hut-Nancy-Mitchell/dp/0615257976/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1485286066&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Nancy+Mitchell+poetry+book+Grief+Hut">Grief Hut&#0160;</a></em>(Cervena Barva Press, 2009). Her recent poems appear, or will soon appear, in <em>Poetry Daily,</em> <em>Agni, Washington Square Review, Green Mountains Review,&#0160;Tar River Poetry, Columbia College Literary Review, and Thrush</em>,&#0160;among others. She is the co-editor of and contributor to <em>Plume Interviews I,</em> forthcoming in February, 2017. Mitchell teaches at Salisbury University and serves as the Associate Editor of Special Features for&#0160;<em>Plume.<br /></em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c8cd191c970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-23T19:00:42Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd191a970bClaire Bateman, Poet and Painter (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-23T19:00:41Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p>Lately I have been struggling with words. I think it has something to do with the politics of the time. I sit down to work, and my mind buzzes with white noise. I don’t know what to say or how to respond. There are all these wonderful <a href="https://www.penusa.org/writers-respond">WRITER’S RESPOND</a> opportunities including <a href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2016/11/an-interview-with-dante-di-stefano-by-nin-andrews.html?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)">Dante Di Stefano’s call for poems</a> for his forthcoming anti-Trump anthology, <em>Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America</em>, but I have nothing to offer. Instead of writing I find myself staring out the window, doodling, or looking at artwork.</p> <p>The <a href="under the category “Beyond words: visual arts”.">recent post by Paul Tracy Danison</a> about the visual arts and moving &quot;beyond words&quot;&#0160;made me wonder about the role other arts play in a poet’s life. As does&#0160;Didi Menendez’s <a href="https://www.poetsandartists.com">POETS/ARTISTS</a> magazine, which creates a beautiful&#0160;dialogue between poetry and art. I also keep thinking of O’Hara’s relationship to painting and painters, of how David Lehman described him as “an action painter in verse&quot; and&#0160;wishing&#0160;I could paint with either color or words.</p> <p>Recently I discovered that two poets whom I admire also paint. I thought I’d interview them here, on consecutive days, and ask them to talk about their work.</p> <p>The first is the poet, Claire Bateman, and below&#0160;is her painting, &quot;The Quietness Clock.&quot;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703eb1970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="The Quietness Clock" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703eb1970d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703eb1970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="The Quietness Clock" /></a></p> <p>What I love about Claire is her mystical vision and her unique ability to make the normal seem transcendent, or the transcendent normal. When I read her poetry (or just talk to her), I see the world through an other-worldly lens. She is, at once, witty and serious, literal and figurative. Her flights of fancy take me both away from and towards myself. How? I have no clue. Whether she is talking about something as simple as doing laundry as in “Three Interiors” which begins:</p> <p>1.</p> <p>The cloud in the dryer doesn’t know it’s a cloud,</p> <p>thinking it’s a demi-veil or a silk chemise,</p> <p>items designed to never appear in a dryer.</p> <p>Forming and falling apart, over and over,</p> <p>the cloud couldn’t’ grasp the rules of laundry</p> <p>if its life depended on them,</p> <p>lustrous fog beholding a universe</p> <p>a –tumble on the other side of the glass.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>or talking about AA, as in her poem, “Anonymous, “which begins:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>When AA offered me</p> <p>the use of their Big Blue Book,</p> <p>I respectfully declined, though</p> <p>never has my life <em>not </em>been</p> <p>either unmanageable</p> <p>or about to become so</p> <p>in subtle, indeterminate ways</p> <p>I have no name for . . .</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>or talking about pain, as in her poem, “The Pain Suit”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>If you happen to live in a broad and open place,</p> <p>you can watch as it comes flying in your direction—</p> <p>not really a suit, of course, just the mask and gloves,</p> <p>though considering the effect, the term is apt.</p> <p>You can’t hope it’s hunting some stranger, since everyone knows</p> <p>that it’s visible only to its destined bearer;</p> <p>you can’t clutch at bystanders, seeking a human shield,</p> <p>since it passes through every obstruction without even slowing.</p> <p>It’s probably best to become a city-dweller,</p> <p>surrounded by walls, oblivious to its approach,</p> <p>unless you’re one of the fools who step forward to meet it,</p> <p>flexing their fingers to feel for the cleanest fit.&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;<br /><br /></p> <p>Claire is, to my mind, nothing short of magical. Mark Halliday&#0160;agrees, calling her&#0160;<a href="http://www.ohio-forum.com/2016/11/claire-bateman-exciting-talent-usa-poetry-mark-halliday/">&quot;the most exciting talent in the USA in poetry,&quot;</a>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA: Claire--how do you do it? How do you balance your time between painting and writing?&#0160;</strong></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd0fdd970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Living room" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd0fdd970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd0fdd970b-200wi" style="width: 180px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Living room" /></a><strong>CB:</strong> One of the ways I do it by treating space as time—that is, by spreading notebooks, paints, canvases, etc. out all over my apartment (I usually have several writing and art projects going simultaneously) so that what I’m engaged in is readily available. I work incrementally and in motion, for instance, painting while I talk on the phone (on Bluetooth), and scrawling fragments of possible poems in my journal wherever I go. As Elizabeth King says, “Work proceeds as a series of self-interruptions.” Because I live in a very small residence, and I’m not very organized, this means tolerating a fair amount of clutter, which is painful to me, though slightly less so than not doing the work. Maybe I can take comfort from the fact that, all appearances to the contrary, as far as the universe is concerned, it requires slightly less entropy for there to be something than for there to be nothing.</p> <p>&#0160;Despite the fact that I’m partly retired, I still have to sacrifice or cut back on various aspects of life in order to have time to write and paint; what I’ve decided I’m willing to give up is complexity in terms of presentation—that is, fashion, home décor, etc.—and also in cooking/eating. If you’re willing to have a bowl of cereal for dinner, you can save yourself a good hour or so. Also, I don’t have a television—if I did, I’d spend a fair amount of time watching.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703b64970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Breakfast 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703b64970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703b64970d-200wi" style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Breakfast 2" /></a></p> <p><strong>NA: How does the inspiration for a poem differ from that of a painting?</strong></p> <p><strong>CB:&#0160;</strong>The difference is primarily in the very beginning. With writing, I have the source material of scribbled fragments (ideas, images, etc.) in my journals to bring to the page, ready to be combined/arranged/cut/rearranged/developed/transformed/contradicted. The visual art is usually non-narrative and non-conceptual; I arrive at the paper or canvas not knowing what I’m going to do, as in Rebecca Solnit’s wonderful book <em>A Field Guide to Getting Lost</em>, where she quotes the ancient philosopher Meno: “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?.” Whatever shows up initially comes more through and from my hands than my brain, and feels more immediate than writing does.</p> <p><strong>NA: And is there any overlap between your paintings and poems? In other words, do you ever have a poem that has a painting that goes with it?</strong></p> <p><strong>CB:&#0160;</strong>Both processes are improvisational, messy, and all-absorbing, and with both of them, most of the time it feels as though I’m nearly always in the frustrating middle—that I’ve already accumulated multitudes of possibilities in my journal, and that I already have a lot of paints and art pieces-in-process around me, and that with both, after a certain point in the work, I’m using the same process of adding and altering layers/dimensions.</p> <p>Sometimes I use writing and art against each other. When writing feels difficult, I recalibrate my attention, giving more of it than usual to visual art, and vice versa, as though I&#39;m thumbing my nose at whichever muse I find most recalcitrant; being ignored seems to inspire a muse to be rather more forthcoming.</p> <p>In general, I suspect that my art informs my writing more than the other way around, primarily because I&#39;m mostly an abstract artist. I think that in a somewhat diffuse way, as I&#39;ve grown in art-making, my writing mind has become more sensitized to subtleties of color, texture, and composition, density, and proportion. &#0160;</p> <p>I do have one poem-painting duo.</p> <p>From “Three Skies” (in <em>Scape</em>):</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <ol start="2"> <li>The Holes in the Wind</li> </ol> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The holes in the wind are not indigenous to the wind,</p> <p>nor may they be reduced to its absence;</p> <p>they precede the wind and sustain it</p> <p>as do roots the wilderness.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The holes in the wind are stitched</p> <p>of ever-smaller holes</p> <p>through which stillness works its way into the world</p> <p>in varying harmonic combinations.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The holes in the wind are swarming the universe,</p> <p>each with its singular mass, spin, and charge,</p> <p>each finer than granulated diamonds,</p> <p>and brighter than the White Forest,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>which is not, as some maintain,</p> <p>the Black Forest in winter,</p> <p>but an entirely distinct entity</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>transposed with the Black Forest</p> <p>at each upstroke of the sky’s one wing.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The painting is called “The Holes in the Wind.”</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd119e970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="The Holes in the Wind" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd119e970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd119e970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="The Holes in the Wind" /></a>I’ve developed a slight occasional shaking in my right hand, for which I’ve learned to compensate by bracing my forearm against the table where I draw. That process triggered this poem:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Tremolando</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Everyone’s raving about it: the new music</p> <p>performed only by virtuosos with palsied hands.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Others have studied to simulate that tremor</p> <p>as an actor might counterfeit a limp or stutter,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>but it can’t be contrived, so they must merely listen,</p> <p>then offer their unimpeded ovation.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>But generally, instead of painting from or about my own poems, or writing about my art or art-making, I’m interested in creating art about the work of others, particularly Emily Dickinson. I’ve just begun this endeavor, and am not crazy yet about anything I’ve done with it, but I look forward to further play, since Dickinson’s poems are such an interesting mix of images and abstraction. Below is&#0160;my monoprint in response to her poem that begins:</p> <p>Four-Trees - upon a solitary Acre -<br /> Without Design<br /> Or Order, or Apparent Action -<br /> Maintain –</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25741f4970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Four trees" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25741f4970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25741f4970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Four trees" /></a>NA: How did you become a painter? A poet? </strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;CB:</strong> I’ve always had a vague urge to dabble, but in middle age, after watching an artist friend at work, I felt almost physically compelled to work with line and color, so I jumped in, experimenting, taking classes here and there, and investigating various mediums and surfaces. Art has transformed my daily life; even when I’m not at my table working, I notice so much more than I did B.A. (Before Art), and feel so much more alive, that in a very real sense I’m not quite the same person. I’m also more aware of what I don’t notice—this passage by James Elkins in his book <em>The Object Stares Back</em> speaks to this issue, and is worth including despite its length.</p> <p><em>&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>... I might entertain the idea that there are two kinds of seeing, instead of the single equation that says seeing equals thinking. The first would have to do with expressions such as &quot;illuminating a problem&quot; or &quot;shedding light on an idea.&quot; When it&#39;s put that way, then thought is the illumination, and the truth is what needs to be lit by thought. On the other hand, when I say I&#39;m &quot;reflecting&quot; on a problem or something has &quot;just dawned on me,&quot; then it&#39;s as if the truth is already luminous and my thought merely collects the light.<br /> <br /> According to the first model, thought takes place in darkness. Ideas and things and selves must be in a primordial darkness until thought sends out its beams to reveal them. But if I reflect on something, then I exist along with various objects in the world, all bathed in a light that comes from somewhere else. In the first model, blindness is all around: it is the condition of the world, and a thought is like a flashlight that temporarily reveals some local object. In the second there is no place for blindness, except in my own mind. If I fail to reflect, if I decline to try to understand the world, then I become blind, or rather I give way to the blindness that is already within me. The second model, where the world is bright and suffused with thought, really has no place for catastrophic, ongoing blindness. If I live in such a world and I choose not to see, then I suffer a momentary blindness -- it might be a slip, and error, a blunder, or a mistake, or in visual terms, a blind spot, a moment or a day of hysterical blindness, amnesia about a trauma, or just a misapprehension, something I overlook, something I fail to notice. No matter how serious these blindnesses are, I can recover from them: I can become aware of my mistake; I can look again and see better. In the first model, where the world is dark and only thought can illuminate it, blindness is more permanent, and I may not be able to recover from it at all. That kind of blindness would include ingrained prejudices, permanent gaps in my thought, failures of imagination, psychotic breaks, fanaticisms and dogmas, and in visual terms, all the things I cannot see or that I refuse to see. Blindness would be all around. Every image would be a light in the darkness, and seeing or thinking would take place against a backdrop of blindness. In this way of setting the problem, blindness is the precondition and constant accompaniment of vision. It cannot be fully seen, but it must always be present wherever there is seeing.<br /> <br /> I would be more content to think of the world as it looks each day, filled with light. The sparse shadows and dark spots that remain would be like the few gaps in my sight—the blind spot in each eye, for instance. If I choose to think this way, thought is beautiful and easy. All we have to do is conceive of an idea and it appears in front of us, bathed in the light of thought, clear and distinct in all its details. And sometimes this happens: if we know an issue very well, we can call it to mind and see all its contours, everything that is involved in it, without effort and in great clarity. But there are many other moments when the other model seems more true. If we do not understand a problem very well, then we cannot form a mental image of it. It seems dark, and thinking about it requires great effort. Even if we think hard, we may illuminate only a small portion of it, and the light we throw may make it look distorted. In that case we might say we can&#39;t see the problem very well, that we cannot generate enough light to illuminate its outlines. It is sadder, but it strikes me that this is much closer to the truth: like seeing, thinking is intermittent, unreliable, and difficult. Both take place in darkness and both depend on light. Blindness is their constant accompaniment, the precondition of both thought and sight.</em></p> <p>Working with visual art, then, has enriched me with a deeper sense of both sight and blindness.</p> <p>Autobiographically speaking, my father’s mother was a writer:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd1219970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Beling" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd1219970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd1219970b-250wi" style="width: 250px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Beling" /></a>Both my parents were highly educated and spoke several languages. My father worked with photography (and later, collage) in his free time, and my mother was quite literary, a writer of short fiction, though our neighbors (at least up until I reached seventh grade) weren’t interested in such things—my mother recounted the story of how a neighbor told her disdainfully, “I had an aunt who read.” Having a lot of books around me and being a lonely-ish only child in a “different” kind of family created a favorable climate for solitary imaginative play. There was no censorship at my house—I read constantly, everything from <em>New Yorker</em> cartoons to Margaret Mead’s <em>Coming of Age in Samoa</em>, and of course, my mother’s old diary and the great books of childhood.</p> <p>I wrote my first poem at the age of five or so. In high school, I took creative writing classes, and received a fine classical literary education at Kenyon College. In my twenties, I discovered contemporary poetry through the Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, where I attended my first poetry workshop. The first collection that I read, and which ignited me, was <em>New American Poets of the 80’s</em>—I still remember the chill I got upon encountering McKeel McBride’s “The Going Under of the Evening Land”:</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703dc9970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Poem for interview" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703dc9970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703dc9970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Poem for interview" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;<strong>NA: If you had to pick between painting and poetry, which would you choose? And why?</strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong><strong>CB:</strong> Probably painting, perhaps because it seems more embodied, and thus more satisfying, yet, poetry is embodied too, in the physical book and as it travels on the vibrations of the voice, and I do experience it as a material entity within me, like music. Because they’re each embodied, though in different ways, this may be a non-rational preference on my part, or perhaps it’s simply because visual art is newer to me. However, I tend to prefer reading to both writing and creating art; I connect reading and art by making bookmarks (an image of them is below).</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA: What is your definition of a perfect poem? A perfect painting? Or a perfect day? Or is there such a thing? </strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong></p> <p><strong>CB:</strong> For me, and probably for most people, the perfect poem or painting is the one that seems (in its execution and in the unfolding of its feeling-sense) most surprisingly inevitable at the moment.</p> <p>My perfect day would involve coffee, dark chocolate, unbroken solitude at home with many creative projects simmering, and a lot of snow and ice. It wouldn’t be perfect if it didn’t occur in the context of having a lot of people in my life at other times, of course.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd139f970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Book marks" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd139f970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd139f970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Book marks" /></a></p> <p><strong>NA: Do you think of art as a habit, a choice, or an act of faith? Either, or, or neither? </strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;CB:</strong> Speaking of faith, inasmuch as I can imagine Judgment Day (whatever that may be), I envision it as, among other things, a revelation of everyone’s works of beauty/artistic exploration that remained undiscovered in life. The amount of art that’s recognized as such in the world has to be infinitesimal compared to what’s been created or even merely imagined only in secret throughout history because of limiting or oppressive circumstances of various kinds: all those smothered songs and crushed designs.</p> <p>Art is certainly a habit, a choice, and an act of faith, as well as everything in between. Because I’m so aware of what an amateur I am and how much dreck I must produce in order to come out with anything I even somewhat like—the signal-to-noise ratio is appalling!—I have to constantly remind myself of what William James wrote: &quot;Since when, in this mixed world, was any good thing given us in purest outline and isolation? ...The sole condition of our having anything, no matter what, is that we should have so much of it, that we are fortunate if we do not grow sick of the sight and sound of it altogether...Without too much you cannot have enough, of anything. Lots of inferior books, lots of bad statues, lots of dull speeches...&quot; So we make the choice to develop the habit of art-making in faith that the act is worthwhile in itself, no matter the outcome. &#0160;And personal as art is, there’s something impersonal and dispassionate about it as well; even if any one of us can’t create on any particular day or in any particular life season, other people are still creating freely. The work is part of the world; it’s always present.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25744eb970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Winged_woman_collage" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25744eb970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25744eb970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Winged_woman_collage" /></a><em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&amp;field-keywords=claire+bateman+poetry+books&amp;rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Aclaire+bateman+poetry+books">Claire Bateman&#39;s books</a> include SCAPE (New Issues Poetry &amp; Prose); LOCALS (Serving House Books), THE BICYCLE SLOW RACE (Wesleyan University Press), FRICTION (Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize), AT THE FUNERAL OF THE ETHER (Ninety-Six Press, Furman University), CLUMSY (New Issues Poetry &amp; Prose), LEAP (New Issues), and CORONOLOGY (Etruscan Press). She has been awarded Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Surdna Foundation, as well as two Pushcart Prizes and the New Millennium Writings 40th Anniversary Poetry Prize. She has taught at Clemson University, the Greenville Fine Arts Center, and various workshops and conferences. She lives in Greenville, SC.</em></p> <p><em>The photograph&#0160;of Claire&#0160;(below) was&#0160;taken by Mary Robbins Hesketh.</em></p> <p>&#0160; <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd17a7970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="More bookmarks-2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd17a7970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd17a7970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="More bookmarks-2" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041be970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Bronze gold" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041be970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041be970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Bronze gold" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041cc970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Claire Bateman photo" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041cc970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041cc970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Claire Bateman photo" /></a><br /><br /></p> <p>Lately I have been struggling with words. I think it has something to do with the politics of the time. I sit down to work, and my mind buzzes with white noise. I don’t know what to say or how to respond. There are all these wonderful <a href="https://www.penusa.org/writers-respond">WRITER’S RESPOND</a> opportunities including <a href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2016/11/an-interview-with-dante-di-stefano-by-nin-andrews.html?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)">Dante Di Stefano’s call for poems</a> for his forthcoming anti-Trump anthology, <em>Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America</em>, but I have nothing to offer. Instead of writing I find myself staring out the window, doodling, or looking at artwork.</p> <p>The <a href="under the category “Beyond words: visual arts”.">recent post by Paul Tracy Danison</a> about the visual arts and moving &quot;beyond words&quot;&#0160;made me wonder about the role other arts play in a poet’s life. As does&#0160;Didi Menendez’s <a href="https://www.poetsandartists.com">POETS/ARTISTS</a> magazine, which creates a beautiful&#0160;dialogue between poetry and art. I also keep thinking of O’Hara’s relationship to painting and painters, of how David Lehman described him as “an action painter in verse&quot; and&#0160;wishing&#0160;I could paint with either color or words.</p> <p>Recently I discovered that two poets whom I admire also paint. I thought I’d interview them here, on consecutive days, and ask them to talk about their work.</p> <p>The first is the poet, Claire Bateman, and below&#0160;is her painting, &quot;The Quietness Clock.&quot;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703eb1970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="The Quietness Clock" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703eb1970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703eb1970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="The Quietness Clock" /></a></p> <p>What I love about Claire is her mystical vision and her unique ability to make the normal seem transcendent, or the transcendent normal. When I read her poetry (or just talk to her), I see the world through an other-worldly lens. She is, at once, witty and serious, literal and figurative. Her flights of fancy take me both away from and towards myself. How? I have no clue. Whether she is talking about something as simple as doing laundry as in “Three Interiors” which begins:</p> <p>1.</p> <p>The cloud in the dryer doesn’t know it’s a cloud,</p> <p>thinking it’s a demi-veil or a silk chemise,</p> <p>items designed to never appear in a dryer.</p> <p>Forming and falling apart, over and over,</p> <p>the cloud couldn’t’ grasp the rules of laundry</p> <p>if its life depended on them,</p> <p>lustrous fog beholding a universe</p> <p>a –tumble on the other side of the glass.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>or talking about AA, as in her poem, “Anonymous, “which begins:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>When AA offered me</p> <p>the use of their Big Blue Book,</p> <p>I respectfully declined, though</p> <p>never has my life <em>not </em>been</p> <p>either unmanageable</p> <p>or about to become so</p> <p>in subtle, indeterminate ways</p> <p>I have no name for . . .</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>or talking about pain, as in her poem, “The Pain Suit”</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>If you happen to live in a broad and open place,</p> <p>you can watch as it comes flying in your direction—</p> <p>not really a suit, of course, just the mask and gloves,</p> <p>though considering the effect, the term is apt.</p> <p>You can’t hope it’s hunting some stranger, since everyone knows</p> <p>that it’s visible only to its destined bearer;</p> <p>you can’t clutch at bystanders, seeking a human shield,</p> <p>since it passes through every obstruction without even slowing.</p> <p>It’s probably best to become a city-dweller,</p> <p>surrounded by walls, oblivious to its approach,</p> <p>unless you’re one of the fools who step forward to meet it,</p> <p>flexing their fingers to feel for the cleanest fit.&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;<br /><br /></p> <p>Claire is, to my mind, nothing short of magical. Mark Halliday&#0160;agrees, calling her&#0160;<a href="http://www.ohio-forum.com/2016/11/claire-bateman-exciting-talent-usa-poetry-mark-halliday/">&quot;the most exciting talent in the USA in poetry,&quot;</a>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA: Claire--how do you do it? How do you balance your time between painting and writing?&#0160;</strong></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd0fdd970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Living room" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd0fdd970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd0fdd970b-200wi" style="width: 180px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Living room" /></a><strong>CB:</strong> One of the ways I do it by treating space as time—that is, by spreading notebooks, paints, canvases, etc. out all over my apartment (I usually have several writing and art projects going simultaneously) so that what I’m engaged in is readily available. I work incrementally and in motion, for instance, painting while I talk on the phone (on Bluetooth), and scrawling fragments of possible poems in my journal wherever I go. As Elizabeth King says, “Work proceeds as a series of self-interruptions.” Because I live in a very small residence, and I’m not very organized, this means tolerating a fair amount of clutter, which is painful to me, though slightly less so than not doing the work. Maybe I can take comfort from the fact that, all appearances to the contrary, as far as the universe is concerned, it requires slightly less entropy for there to be something than for there to be nothing.</p> <p>&#0160;Despite the fact that I’m partly retired, I still have to sacrifice or cut back on various aspects of life in order to have time to write and paint; what I’ve decided I’m willing to give up is complexity in terms of presentation—that is, fashion, home décor, etc.—and also in cooking/eating. If you’re willing to have a bowl of cereal for dinner, you can save yourself a good hour or so. Also, I don’t have a television—if I did, I’d spend a fair amount of time watching.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703b64970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Breakfast 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703b64970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703b64970d-200wi" style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Breakfast 2" /></a></p> <p><strong>NA: How does the inspiration for a poem differ from that of a painting?</strong></p> <p><strong>CB:&#0160;</strong>The difference is primarily in the very beginning. With writing, I have the source material of scribbled fragments (ideas, images, etc.) in my journals to bring to the page, ready to be combined/arranged/cut/rearranged/developed/transformed/contradicted. The visual art is usually non-narrative and non-conceptual; I arrive at the paper or canvas not knowing what I’m going to do, as in Rebecca Solnit’s wonderful book <em>A Field Guide to Getting Lost</em>, where she quotes the ancient philosopher Meno: “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?.” Whatever shows up initially comes more through and from my hands than my brain, and feels more immediate than writing does.</p> <p><strong>NA: And is there any overlap between your paintings and poems? In other words, do you ever have a poem that has a painting that goes with it?</strong></p> <p><strong>CB:&#0160;</strong>Both processes are improvisational, messy, and all-absorbing, and with both of them, most of the time it feels as though I’m nearly always in the frustrating middle—that I’ve already accumulated multitudes of possibilities in my journal, and that I already have a lot of paints and art pieces-in-process around me, and that with both, after a certain point in the work, I’m using the same process of adding and altering layers/dimensions.</p> <p>Sometimes I use writing and art against each other. When writing feels difficult, I recalibrate my attention, giving more of it than usual to visual art, and vice versa, as though I&#39;m thumbing my nose at whichever muse I find most recalcitrant; being ignored seems to inspire a muse to be rather more forthcoming.</p> <p>In general, I suspect that my art informs my writing more than the other way around, primarily because I&#39;m mostly an abstract artist. I think that in a somewhat diffuse way, as I&#39;ve grown in art-making, my writing mind has become more sensitized to subtleties of color, texture, and composition, density, and proportion. &#0160;</p> <p>I do have one poem-painting duo.</p> <p>From “Three Skies” (in <em>Scape</em>):</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <ol start="2"> <li>The Holes in the Wind</li> </ol> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The holes in the wind are not indigenous to the wind,</p> <p>nor may they be reduced to its absence;</p> <p>they precede the wind and sustain it</p> <p>as do roots the wilderness.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The holes in the wind are stitched</p> <p>of ever-smaller holes</p> <p>through which stillness works its way into the world</p> <p>in varying harmonic combinations.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The holes in the wind are swarming the universe,</p> <p>each with its singular mass, spin, and charge,</p> <p>each finer than granulated diamonds,</p> <p>and brighter than the White Forest,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>which is not, as some maintain,</p> <p>the Black Forest in winter,</p> <p>but an entirely distinct entity</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>transposed with the Black Forest</p> <p>at each upstroke of the sky’s one wing.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>The painting is called “The Holes in the Wind.”</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd119e970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="The Holes in the Wind" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd119e970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd119e970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="The Holes in the Wind" /></a>I’ve developed a slight occasional shaking in my right hand, for which I’ve learned to compensate by bracing my forearm against the table where I draw. That process triggered this poem:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Tremolando</em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Everyone’s raving about it: the new music</p> <p>performed only by virtuosos with palsied hands.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Others have studied to simulate that tremor</p> <p>as an actor might counterfeit a limp or stutter,</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>but it can’t be contrived, so they must merely listen,</p> <p>then offer their unimpeded ovation.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>But generally, instead of painting from or about my own poems, or writing about my art or art-making, I’m interested in creating art about the work of others, particularly Emily Dickinson. I’ve just begun this endeavor, and am not crazy yet about anything I’ve done with it, but I look forward to further play, since Dickinson’s poems are such an interesting mix of images and abstraction. Below is&#0160;my monoprint in response to her poem that begins:</p> <p>Four-Trees - upon a solitary Acre -<br /> Without Design<br /> Or Order, or Apparent Action -<br /> Maintain –</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25741f4970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Four trees" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25741f4970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25741f4970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Four trees" /></a>NA: How did you become a painter? A poet? </strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;CB:</strong> I’ve always had a vague urge to dabble, but in middle age, after watching an artist friend at work, I felt almost physically compelled to work with line and color, so I jumped in, experimenting, taking classes here and there, and investigating various mediums and surfaces. Art has transformed my daily life; even when I’m not at my table working, I notice so much more than I did B.A. (Before Art), and feel so much more alive, that in a very real sense I’m not quite the same person. I’m also more aware of what I don’t notice—this passage by James Elkins in his book <em>The Object Stares Back</em> speaks to this issue, and is worth including despite its length.</p> <p><em>&#0160;</em></p> <p><em>... I might entertain the idea that there are two kinds of seeing, instead of the single equation that says seeing equals thinking. The first would have to do with expressions such as &quot;illuminating a problem&quot; or &quot;shedding light on an idea.&quot; When it&#39;s put that way, then thought is the illumination, and the truth is what needs to be lit by thought. On the other hand, when I say I&#39;m &quot;reflecting&quot; on a problem or something has &quot;just dawned on me,&quot; then it&#39;s as if the truth is already luminous and my thought merely collects the light.<br /> <br /> According to the first model, thought takes place in darkness. Ideas and things and selves must be in a primordial darkness until thought sends out its beams to reveal them. But if I reflect on something, then I exist along with various objects in the world, all bathed in a light that comes from somewhere else. In the first model, blindness is all around: it is the condition of the world, and a thought is like a flashlight that temporarily reveals some local object. In the second there is no place for blindness, except in my own mind. If I fail to reflect, if I decline to try to understand the world, then I become blind, or rather I give way to the blindness that is already within me. The second model, where the world is bright and suffused with thought, really has no place for catastrophic, ongoing blindness. If I live in such a world and I choose not to see, then I suffer a momentary blindness -- it might be a slip, and error, a blunder, or a mistake, or in visual terms, a blind spot, a moment or a day of hysterical blindness, amnesia about a trauma, or just a misapprehension, something I overlook, something I fail to notice. No matter how serious these blindnesses are, I can recover from them: I can become aware of my mistake; I can look again and see better. In the first model, where the world is dark and only thought can illuminate it, blindness is more permanent, and I may not be able to recover from it at all. That kind of blindness would include ingrained prejudices, permanent gaps in my thought, failures of imagination, psychotic breaks, fanaticisms and dogmas, and in visual terms, all the things I cannot see or that I refuse to see. Blindness would be all around. Every image would be a light in the darkness, and seeing or thinking would take place against a backdrop of blindness. In this way of setting the problem, blindness is the precondition and constant accompaniment of vision. It cannot be fully seen, but it must always be present wherever there is seeing.<br /> <br /> I would be more content to think of the world as it looks each day, filled with light. The sparse shadows and dark spots that remain would be like the few gaps in my sight—the blind spot in each eye, for instance. If I choose to think this way, thought is beautiful and easy. All we have to do is conceive of an idea and it appears in front of us, bathed in the light of thought, clear and distinct in all its details. And sometimes this happens: if we know an issue very well, we can call it to mind and see all its contours, everything that is involved in it, without effort and in great clarity. But there are many other moments when the other model seems more true. If we do not understand a problem very well, then we cannot form a mental image of it. It seems dark, and thinking about it requires great effort. Even if we think hard, we may illuminate only a small portion of it, and the light we throw may make it look distorted. In that case we might say we can&#39;t see the problem very well, that we cannot generate enough light to illuminate its outlines. It is sadder, but it strikes me that this is much closer to the truth: like seeing, thinking is intermittent, unreliable, and difficult. Both take place in darkness and both depend on light. Blindness is their constant accompaniment, the precondition of both thought and sight.</em></p> <p>Working with visual art, then, has enriched me with a deeper sense of both sight and blindness.</p> <p>Autobiographically speaking, my father’s mother was a writer:</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd1219970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Beling" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd1219970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd1219970b-250wi" style="width: 250px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Beling" /></a>Both my parents were highly educated and spoke several languages. My father worked with photography (and later, collage) in his free time, and my mother was quite literary, a writer of short fiction, though our neighbors (at least up until I reached seventh grade) weren’t interested in such things—my mother recounted the story of how a neighbor told her disdainfully, “I had an aunt who read.” Having a lot of books around me and being a lonely-ish only child in a “different” kind of family created a favorable climate for solitary imaginative play. There was no censorship at my house—I read constantly, everything from <em>New Yorker</em> cartoons to Margaret Mead’s <em>Coming of Age in Samoa</em>, and of course, my mother’s old diary and the great books of childhood.</p> <p>I wrote my first poem at the age of five or so. In high school, I took creative writing classes, and received a fine classical literary education at Kenyon College. In my twenties, I discovered contemporary poetry through the Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, where I attended my first poetry workshop. The first collection that I read, and which ignited me, was <em>New American Poets of the 80’s</em>—I still remember the chill I got upon encountering McKeel McBride’s “The Going Under of the Evening Land”:</p> <p>&#0160;&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703dc9970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Poem for interview" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703dc9970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09703dc9970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Poem for interview" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;<strong>NA: If you had to pick between painting and poetry, which would you choose? And why?</strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong><strong>CB:</strong> Probably painting, perhaps because it seems more embodied, and thus more satisfying, yet, poetry is embodied too, in the physical book and as it travels on the vibrations of the voice, and I do experience it as a material entity within me, like music. Because they’re each embodied, though in different ways, this may be a non-rational preference on my part, or perhaps it’s simply because visual art is newer to me. However, I tend to prefer reading to both writing and creating art; I connect reading and art by making bookmarks (an image of them is below).</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><strong>NA: What is your definition of a perfect poem? A perfect painting? Or a perfect day? Or is there such a thing? </strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;</strong></p> <p><strong>CB:</strong> For me, and probably for most people, the perfect poem or painting is the one that seems (in its execution and in the unfolding of its feeling-sense) most surprisingly inevitable at the moment.</p> <p>My perfect day would involve coffee, dark chocolate, unbroken solitude at home with many creative projects simmering, and a lot of snow and ice. It wouldn’t be perfect if it didn’t occur in the context of having a lot of people in my life at other times, of course.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd139f970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Book marks" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd139f970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd139f970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Book marks" /></a></p> <p><strong>NA: Do you think of art as a habit, a choice, or an act of faith? Either, or, or neither? </strong></p> <p><strong>&#0160;CB:</strong> Speaking of faith, inasmuch as I can imagine Judgment Day (whatever that may be), I envision it as, among other things, a revelation of everyone’s works of beauty/artistic exploration that remained undiscovered in life. The amount of art that’s recognized as such in the world has to be infinitesimal compared to what’s been created or even merely imagined only in secret throughout history because of limiting or oppressive circumstances of various kinds: all those smothered songs and crushed designs.</p> <p>Art is certainly a habit, a choice, and an act of faith, as well as everything in between. Because I’m so aware of what an amateur I am and how much dreck I must produce in order to come out with anything I even somewhat like—the signal-to-noise ratio is appalling!—I have to constantly remind myself of what William James wrote: &quot;Since when, in this mixed world, was any good thing given us in purest outline and isolation? ...The sole condition of our having anything, no matter what, is that we should have so much of it, that we are fortunate if we do not grow sick of the sight and sound of it altogether...Without too much you cannot have enough, of anything. Lots of inferior books, lots of bad statues, lots of dull speeches...&quot; So we make the choice to develop the habit of art-making in faith that the act is worthwhile in itself, no matter the outcome. &#0160;And personal as art is, there’s something impersonal and dispassionate about it as well; even if any one of us can’t create on any particular day or in any particular life season, other people are still creating freely. The work is part of the world; it’s always present.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25744eb970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Winged_woman_collage" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25744eb970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d25744eb970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Winged_woman_collage" /></a><em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&amp;field-keywords=claire+bateman+poetry+books&amp;rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Aclaire+bateman+poetry+books">Claire Bateman&#39;s books</a> include SCAPE (New Issues Poetry &amp; Prose); LOCALS (Serving House Books), THE BICYCLE SLOW RACE (Wesleyan University Press), FRICTION (Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize), AT THE FUNERAL OF THE ETHER (Ninety-Six Press, Furman University), CLUMSY (New Issues Poetry &amp; Prose), LEAP (New Issues), and CORONOLOGY (Etruscan Press). She has been awarded Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Surdna Foundation, as well as two Pushcart Prizes and the New Millennium Writings 40th Anniversary Poetry Prize. She has taught at Clemson University, the Greenville Fine Arts Center, and various workshops and conferences. She lives in Greenville, SC.</em></p> <p><em>The photograph&#0160;of Claire&#0160;(below) was&#0160;taken by Mary Robbins Hesketh.</em></p> <p>&#0160; <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd17a7970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="More bookmarks-2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd17a7970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8cd17a7970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="More bookmarks-2" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041be970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Bronze gold" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041be970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041be970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Bronze gold" /></a> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041cc970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Claire Bateman photo" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041cc970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb097041cc970d-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Claire Bateman photo" /></a><br /><br /></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01bb0968489b970d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2017-01-08T19:31:18Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09684899970dThe Art of Procrastination (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2017-01-08T19:31:18Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><em>Oh, favorite of favorites, friend and confidant</em>, I say aloud to the blank page on my desk. (And yes, I do talk to my writing sometimes, or to the person who writes, the one who both is and isn’t me. Am I the only one who does this? It’s kind of embarrassing to admit . . .)</p> <p><em>I don’t know what happens to me! Forgive me! Sometimes I avoid you when you are the one I most want to be with. When the truth is, all I want to do is write. </em></p> <p><em>So why don’t you?</em> you ask me. I have no clue.</p> <p>Take yesterday, for example. For the first time in ages, I had a chance to get back to work. I had a series of empty hours ahead, as inviting as a whole pile of blank pages, just waiting to be filled. I had no errands to run, no vet or doctor’s appointments (God forbid), no phone calls to answer, no cleaning to do (okay, that’s not exactly true, but hey). So what did I do?</p> <p>I looked in the mirror. <em>Big mistake.</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f301b970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="No eyebrows" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f301b970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f301b970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="No eyebrows" /></a></p> <p>I never like looking in the mirror, esp. now that I am a woman “of a certain age.” And all at once, I decided I needed eyebrows. I know. I know. Clearly, you are correct to point out that I don’t need eyebrows to write poetry. But let me explain . . .</p> <p>Because just a few days ago, I had never really thought about my eyebrows. Or the lack thereof. I was in the beauty parlor, getting a trim, and the woman in the chair next to mine had just had her eyebrows dyed, and she was drawing on them with a colored pencil. Several ladies began discussing eyebrows.</p> <p><em>So what’s the deal with eyebrows?</em> I asked. And one of the women explained, <em>You can’t just have eyebrows these days. You have to dye them and/or draw them in so they look full and shapely. And make your eyes pop.</em> My beautician asked if I wanted my own brows done so I could see my eyes pop. Evidently, popping eyes is a thing now. <em>No thanks,</em> I said. After all, I reasoned, eyebrows are the least of my problems.</p> <p>But suddenly, a week or so later, when looking at my reflection and thinking of all those nice empty hours ahead, I felt an urgent need for eyebrows. <em>How long could it take to get eyebrows? </em>I sighed, thinking I’d be back home in a jiffy. I drove over to the Ulta Store, plopped myself down at the beauty counter, and announced, <em>I need help. Or rather, I need eyebrows.</em></p> <p>A pretty blond girl (she looked about sixteen) proceeded to draw eyebrows on my forehead. She paused now and again, tilting my head back, her index finger under my chin. She said she wasn’t sure about my color. So first she drew yellowish eyebrows on my head that gave the brows a halo. Then taupe—or some kind of drab wintry color. Then brown. Then she drew these amazing dark brown eyebrows—Audrey Hepburn would have been so jealous. Finally she made one brow a chestnut color and the other a kind of dark gold color. <em>I think it’s an either/or question</em>, she said, stepping back, her head cocked to one side as she handed me a mirror. I thought of Keirkegaard’s <em>Either/Or</em> –his contrasting of art and beauty and seduction with a moral imperative. I think his argument was, at least in part, that one could veer too heavily in either direction, and only faith could save you. The leaping faith, or leap to faith (not of faith), he described in another of his indecipherable&#0160;books.</p> <p>But in thinking of him, I felt a sudden need for something like faith, or anything other than eyebrows.</p> <p>So there went all my blank hours. Well, not all of them, but let’s just say, it wasn’t quite the day I’d anticipated. Or the eyebrows. I began wondering if Donald Trump dyes his eyebrows to match his hair. And back at home, when faced with blank pages again, I found myself doodling Donald Trumps instead of writing, thinking that maybe Trump was from a Looking Glass World, that he might be the Orange Queen. <em>It won’t take me long to draw an Orange Queen</em>, I thought . . . And of course, there went another hour.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f3034970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="The Orange Queen!" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f3034970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f3034970c-500wi" title="The Orange Queen!" /></a></p> <p>For me drawing is a major distraction. It’s my first choice form of procrastination. But it’s also a love—more of a puppy love or a flirtation, I suppose, than the real thing. Often it makes me laugh aloud to draw. I’m such a hack. Lately, I’ve been noticing that quite a few other writers have a second love. I wonder if it’s a distraction or a passion. And how it works for them. Nancy Mitchell and Claire Bateman, for example, are two accomplished poets who paint. And I mean seriously paint. Maybe I will talk about them in a future post . . .</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8c55e88970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Eyebrows 3" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8c55e88970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8c55e88970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Eyebrows 3" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews’ most recent chapbook, <a href="http://madhat-press.com/products/our-lady-of-the-orgasm-by-nin-andrews">Our Lady of the Orgasm,</a> was published by MatHat in 2016.</em></p> <p><em>Oh, favorite of favorites, friend and confidant</em>, I say aloud to the blank page on my desk. (And yes, I do talk to my writing sometimes, or to the person who writes, the one who both is and isn’t me. Am I the only one who does this? It’s kind of embarrassing to admit . . .)</p> <p><em>I don’t know what happens to me! Forgive me! Sometimes I avoid you when you are the one I most want to be with. When the truth is, all I want to do is write. </em></p> <p><em>So why don’t you?</em> you ask me. I have no clue.</p> <p>Take yesterday, for example. For the first time in ages, I had a chance to get back to work. I had a series of empty hours ahead, as inviting as a whole pile of blank pages, just waiting to be filled. I had no errands to run, no vet or doctor’s appointments (God forbid), no phone calls to answer, no cleaning to do (okay, that’s not exactly true, but hey). So what did I do?</p> <p>I looked in the mirror. <em>Big mistake.</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f301b970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="No eyebrows" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f301b970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f301b970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="No eyebrows" /></a></p> <p>I never like looking in the mirror, esp. now that I am a woman “of a certain age.” And all at once, I decided I needed eyebrows. I know. I know. Clearly, you are correct to point out that I don’t need eyebrows to write poetry. But let me explain . . .</p> <p>Because just a few days ago, I had never really thought about my eyebrows. Or the lack thereof. I was in the beauty parlor, getting a trim, and the woman in the chair next to mine had just had her eyebrows dyed, and she was drawing on them with a colored pencil. Several ladies began discussing eyebrows.</p> <p><em>So what’s the deal with eyebrows?</em> I asked. And one of the women explained, <em>You can’t just have eyebrows these days. You have to dye them and/or draw them in so they look full and shapely. And make your eyes pop.</em> My beautician asked if I wanted my own brows done so I could see my eyes pop. Evidently, popping eyes is a thing now. <em>No thanks,</em> I said. After all, I reasoned, eyebrows are the least of my problems.</p> <p>But suddenly, a week or so later, when looking at my reflection and thinking of all those nice empty hours ahead, I felt an urgent need for eyebrows. <em>How long could it take to get eyebrows? </em>I sighed, thinking I’d be back home in a jiffy. I drove over to the Ulta Store, plopped myself down at the beauty counter, and announced, <em>I need help. Or rather, I need eyebrows.</em></p> <p>A pretty blond girl (she looked about sixteen) proceeded to draw eyebrows on my forehead. She paused now and again, tilting my head back, her index finger under my chin. She said she wasn’t sure about my color. So first she drew yellowish eyebrows on my head that gave the brows a halo. Then taupe—or some kind of drab wintry color. Then brown. Then she drew these amazing dark brown eyebrows—Audrey Hepburn would have been so jealous. Finally she made one brow a chestnut color and the other a kind of dark gold color. <em>I think it’s an either/or question</em>, she said, stepping back, her head cocked to one side as she handed me a mirror. I thought of Keirkegaard’s <em>Either/Or</em> –his contrasting of art and beauty and seduction with a moral imperative. I think his argument was, at least in part, that one could veer too heavily in either direction, and only faith could save you. The leaping faith, or leap to faith (not of faith), he described in another of his indecipherable&#0160;books.</p> <p>But in thinking of him, I felt a sudden need for something like faith, or anything other than eyebrows.</p> <p>So there went all my blank hours. Well, not all of them, but let’s just say, it wasn’t quite the day I’d anticipated. Or the eyebrows. I began wondering if Donald Trump dyes his eyebrows to match his hair. And back at home, when faced with blank pages again, I found myself doodling Donald Trumps instead of writing, thinking that maybe Trump was from a Looking Glass World, that he might be the Orange Queen. <em>It won’t take me long to draw an Orange Queen</em>, I thought . . . And of course, there went another hour.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f3034970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="The Orange Queen!" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f3034970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d24f3034970c-500wi" title="The Orange Queen!" /></a></p> <p>For me drawing is a major distraction. It’s my first choice form of procrastination. But it’s also a love—more of a puppy love or a flirtation, I suppose, than the real thing. Often it makes me laugh aloud to draw. I’m such a hack. Lately, I’ve been noticing that quite a few other writers have a second love. I wonder if it’s a distraction or a passion. And how it works for them. Nancy Mitchell and Claire Bateman, for example, are two accomplished poets who paint. And I mean seriously paint. Maybe I will talk about them in a future post . . .</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8c55e88970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Eyebrows 3" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8c55e88970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8c55e88970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Eyebrows 3" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>Nin Andrews’ most recent chapbook, <a href="http://madhat-press.com/products/our-lady-of-the-orgasm-by-nin-andrews">Our Lady of the Orgasm,</a> was published by MatHat in 2016.</em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d2458894970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-12-12T16:24:31Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2458892970cDorothy Parker's "News Item" by Nin Andrewshttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-12-12T16:24:31Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d245c9f7970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Dorothy Parker, glasses" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d245c9f7970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d245c9f7970c-500wi" title="Dorothy Parker, glasses" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Sometimes I think&#0160;reading Dorothy Parker is like reading a witty love-advice columnist. There is also this poem:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Unfortunate Coincidence</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>By the time you swear you&#39;re his,</p> <p>Shivering and sighing,</p> <p>And he vows his passion is</p> <p>Infinite, undying--</p> <p>Lady, make a note of this:</p> <p>one of you is lying.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d245c9f7970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Dorothy Parker, glasses" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d245c9f7970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d245c9f7970c-500wi" title="Dorothy Parker, glasses" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Sometimes I think&#0160;reading Dorothy Parker is like reading a witty love-advice columnist. There is also this poem:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Unfortunate Coincidence</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>By the time you swear you&#39;re his,</p> <p>Shivering and sighing,</p> <p>And he vows his passion is</p> <p>Infinite, undying--</p> <p>Lady, make a note of this:</p> <p>one of you is lying.&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d2438f05970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-12-07T19:02:11Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2438f03970cThe Variable Foot (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-12-07T19:02:11Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8b9ceea970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="WCW the variable foot" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8b9ceea970b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8b9ceea970b-500wi" title="WCW the variable foot" /></a></p> <p>This comic is based on a few lines from the introduction to William Carlos William in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Book-American-Poetry/dp/019516251X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1481137204&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=The+Oxford+anthology+of+American+poetry">The Oxford Anthology of American Poetry</a>&#0160;that made me laugh:</p> <p>“I write in the American idiom, “ Williams noted, “and for many years I have been using what I call the variable foot.” One of the secrets of American poetry is that no one knows what “the variable foot” really is.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8b9ceea970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="WCW the variable foot" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8b9ceea970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8b9ceea970b-500wi" title="WCW the variable foot" /></a></p> <p>This comic is based on a few lines from the introduction to William Carlos William in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Book-American-Poetry/dp/019516251X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1481137204&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=The+Oxford+anthology+of+American+poetry">The Oxford Anthology of American Poetry</a>&#0160;that made me laugh:</p> <p>“I write in the American idiom, “ Williams noted, “and for many years I have been using what I call the variable foot.” One of the secrets of American poetry is that no one knows what “the variable foot” really is.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01bb0958ac8b970d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-11-29T16:47:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0958ac85970dAn Interview with Dante Di Stefano (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-11-29T16:47:12Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09579997970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Love is a Stone_Cover_JPEG" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09579997970d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09579997970d-500wi" title="Love is a Stone_Cover_JPEG" /></a></p> <p>NA: This is such a beautiful book, and a welcome gift in this dark time. But before we talk about it, I wanted to ask you about the anthology you are putting together in response to Trump’s presidency.</p> <p>DD: Thanks for the kind words, Nin! I am working on this anthology titled: <em>Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump&#39;s America</em>. I’m looking for poetry (previously published and unpublished) that bears witness against the misogyny, racism, homophobia, and downright fascism that has always surrounded us, but is incarnated in the president elect. The poems need not be directly about Donald Trump, but should address any of the various complex social ills of which his election is a symptom. Poets interested in submitting work should send 3-5 poems in a word document by February 20, 2017 to <a href="mailto:dantedistefano@gmail.com">dantedistefano@gmail.com</a>.</p> <p>My dream would be that this anthology would be a means to raise funds for groups and causes that may find themselves steamrolled under the new administration. I also hope this work would in some small way galvanize opposition against the encroaching autocracy, jingoism, anti-intellectualism, and hate of a Trump White House.</p> <p>NA: Your poetry really does speak of the ability to make light out of darkness, whether you are writing about chemotherapy, your mother’s tears, or your father’s death. I wondered if we could start with a poem from the book, maybe “Field Trip”?</p> <p>DD: This is a poem I wrote a few years before my father died, after he had first undergone surgery for what was initially thought to be a routine form of thyroid cancer. I should also add that the staff at Sloan-Kettering, as anyone who has been there knows, is the most amazing medical staff in the world, from the orderlies on up.</p> <p><strong>Field Trip</strong></p> <p>On a day my father almost died,</p> <p>I watched middle school children parade</p> <p>by the window of the cab I sat in</p> <p>as we waited for the light to turn</p> <p>and York Avenue opened up like his sutures,</p> <p>poorly stitched. I watched them walk on tiptoes,</p> <p>woodwinds under their arms, necks free</p> <p>of lacerations, tracheae intact.</p> <p>I saw them disappear down 68th Street</p> <p>and thought of the orchids that surround</p> <p>all the waiting rooms in Sloan-Kettering,</p> <p>how their heads dip downward, as if heaven</p> <p>were a hollow beneath the earth.</p> <p>NA: Who are some of the writers who have helped and inspired you?</p> <p>DD: I have had wonderful poets who taught me at Binghamton University: Karen Terebessey, Paul-William Burch, Liz Rosenberg, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, and Joe Weil.</p> <p>I admire poets like David Lehman, for whom scholarship and serious study of various poetic traditions is as important as their creative work. I particularly admire Philip Metres, Martín Espada, and Sascha Feinstein; all three of these men embody values of total empathy, committed social engagement, commendable scholarly rigor, and uncompromising artistic integrity.</p> <p>I’m very grateful for my friendship with the novelist, Tom Bouman, who is one of the most honorable and intelligent men I know. I am grateful for my friendship with Nicole Santalucia, who is like a sister to me, and who introduced me to you, Nin. I am also lucky to count two talented poets and former guest bloggers at BAP as friends: Abby E. Murray and Tara Betts.</p> <p>Two contemporary poets who died too young and whose work I continually reread are Jason Shinder and Joe Salerno.</p> <p>Some younger contemporary poets I admire include: Patricia Colleen Murphy, Jen Levitt, Grace Bonner, and drea brown.</p> <p>Recently, I’ve been reading through and loving <em>The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser</em>.</p> <p>In fiction, I love Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Borges, Twain, Kafka, and Cervantes. I have reread <em>Don Quixote</em> many times, and each time is better than the last.</p> <p>The poets I return to again and again are the same poets I have been reading since I first fell in love with poetry at eighteen years old: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Stephen Mitchell’s Rilke, William Blake, Christopher Smart, Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams, Russell Edson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Bly’s Miguel Hernandez, and various translations of Federico García Lorca.</p> <p>There are so many poets I love and admire! I could go on for hours. Even when I quarrel with a poem, I feel like it is helping me in some hard-to-define sense.</p> <p>NA: You also teach high school? What a gift you must be to those students! Tell me,</p> <p>What is the most challenging part of teaching poetry?</p> <p>DD: I try not to teach it. I try to make poetry the center of my classroom. I try to model my engagement with poetry, which is more essential than academic. I begin the school year by reciting Robert Pinsky’s “Samurai Song,” which begins: “When I had no roof/ I made audacity my roof.” On the door to my classroom, I have the Ezra Pound poem, “Commission,” which begins “Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied.” Most of my career as a public high school teacher has been spent teaching students with learning disabilities in a general education setting. Despite the fact that many of my students are reluctant readers, I’ve been able to expose hundreds of students over the years to the work of poets as various as T.S. Eliot, William Shakespeare, Rodrigo Toscano, Eileen Myles, Wanda Coleman, Christina Rossetti, Kay Ryan, Reginald Dwayne Betts, H.D., Frank O’Hara, Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rae Armantrout, Robert Lowell, and so on. And the wonderful thing about working with kids is that they meet these poets and their poems with none of the prejudices that an experienced reader might…for these kids, a poem is a poem is a poem. A poem by Natalie Diaz enters the air of the classroom with the same bona fides as the best lines of Tennyson. Many of the students I teach will go no further than community college, many will wind up working in retail, most, it’s safe to assume, will never seek out a book of poetry in their adult lives. However, in tenth grade they will have swam with me and Melville and the Maldive shark.</p> <p>Last year, my wife and I were in a local clothing store and when we went up to the counter, the girl at the register was one of my former students. I hadn’t seen her since she graduated about seven years previously and, honestly, I did not remember her at all. When she saw me, however, she very excitedly rolled up her sleeves and held out her wrists to show me the words “Nothing Gold” on the left, and “Can Stay” on the right, tattooed in beautiful green and yellow cursive. Then, she thanked me for introducing her to the poem. I’d like to think of this former student’s tattoos as a metaphor for what I hope to accomplish as a teacher. You never know what few words might be carried at the wrist through much suffering, might offer a calligraphy of hope, might overwrite a racing pulse.</p> <p>NA: I am always interested in titles. When did you know that this was your title?</p> <p>DD: The line is adapted from a line in William Carlos Williams’ <em>Paterson</em>. I have been in love with <em>Paterson</em> and WCW since I was an undergraduate in Liz Rosenberg’s advanced poetry workshop. Liz encouraged me to write my own <em>Paterson</em> about Binghamton, NY, my hometown. I spent years writing mostly bad poems about this place. Years later, thanks to my teachers, the New Jersey poets, Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Joe Weil, I became acquainted with the real Paterson, New Jersey, and Williams’ work gained added nuance for me.</p> <p>After my father died (he had a rare form of thyroid cancer along with bile duct cancer), I returned to <em>Paterson</em>. The sprawl and beauty of Williams’ failed epic gained poignancy when I read it against the profound suffering and degradation I witnessed firsthand as I took care of my father throughout his final illness. Poetry at its finest affirms the dignity of human life, a dignity which fountains through even the worst degradation and the most profound suffering.</p> <p>NA: Is there anything else you’d like to say about this book?</p> <p>Just that this book chronicles my enthusiasms and loves. In addition to poems about my family and my hometown, there are poems about my heroes: Sun Ra, Thelonious Monk, Don Cherry, Professor Longhair, Muddy Waters, Charles Mingus, Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Mississippi John Hurt, and Junior Kimbrough.</p> <p>I’m a practicing Roman Catholic and the book includes many poems that explore issues related to faith (in the Kierkegaardian sense—as a process of infinite becoming).</p> <p>The book also explores the limits and backwaters of American empire.</p> <p>I try to write from what the great Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh called the parochial perspective. The provincial poet, Kavanagh argues, “does not trust what his eyes see until he has heard what the metropolis—towards which his eyes are turned—has to say on the subject.” The parochial poet, on the other hand, never doubts the artistic and social validity inherent in his home turf. My home turf is as much the music and art that I love as it is upstate New York, my family, and my Catholicism.</p> <p>For all the flaws in this first book, I’m proud of it. If there is anything good in it, the merit belongs to the excellent teachers that I have had over the years and to the people whom I love, especially to my wife, Christina.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a href="ninandrews.com"><strong>Nin Andrews&#39;</strong> </a>most recent poetry collection&#0160;is <em><a href="http://madhat-press.com/products/our-lady-of-the-orgasm-by-nin-andrews">Our Lady of the Orgasm</a></em>, published by Plume Editions, 2016.</p> <p><strong>Dante Di Stefano</strong> is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Stone-Endlessly-Flight-Poems/dp/1944467025"><em>Love is a Stone Endlessly in Flight</em> </a>(Brighthorse Books, 2016). His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in Brilliant Corners, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Los Angeles Review, New Orleans Review, Obsidian, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, The Writer&#39;s Chronicle, and elsewhere. Most recently, he is the winner of the Red Hen Press Poetry Award and Crab Orchard Review’s Special Issue Feature Award in Poetry. He lives in Endwell, New York.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09579997970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Love is a Stone_Cover_JPEG" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09579997970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb09579997970d-500wi" title="Love is a Stone_Cover_JPEG" /></a></p> <p>NA: This is such a beautiful book, and a welcome gift in this dark time. But before we talk about it, I wanted to ask you about the anthology you are putting together in response to Trump’s presidency.</p> <p>DD: Thanks for the kind words, Nin! I am working on this anthology titled: <em>Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump&#39;s America</em>. I’m looking for poetry (previously published and unpublished) that bears witness against the misogyny, racism, homophobia, and downright fascism that has always surrounded us, but is incarnated in the president elect. The poems need not be directly about Donald Trump, but should address any of the various complex social ills of which his election is a symptom. Poets interested in submitting work should send 3-5 poems in a word document by February 20, 2017 to <a href="mailto:dantedistefano@gmail.com">dantedistefano@gmail.com</a>.</p> <p>My dream would be that this anthology would be a means to raise funds for groups and causes that may find themselves steamrolled under the new administration. I also hope this work would in some small way galvanize opposition against the encroaching autocracy, jingoism, anti-intellectualism, and hate of a Trump White House.</p> <p>NA: Your poetry really does speak of the ability to make light out of darkness, whether you are writing about chemotherapy, your mother’s tears, or your father’s death. I wondered if we could start with a poem from the book, maybe “Field Trip”?</p> <p>DD: This is a poem I wrote a few years before my father died, after he had first undergone surgery for what was initially thought to be a routine form of thyroid cancer. I should also add that the staff at Sloan-Kettering, as anyone who has been there knows, is the most amazing medical staff in the world, from the orderlies on up.</p> <p><strong>Field Trip</strong></p> <p>On a day my father almost died,</p> <p>I watched middle school children parade</p> <p>by the window of the cab I sat in</p> <p>as we waited for the light to turn</p> <p>and York Avenue opened up like his sutures,</p> <p>poorly stitched. I watched them walk on tiptoes,</p> <p>woodwinds under their arms, necks free</p> <p>of lacerations, tracheae intact.</p> <p>I saw them disappear down 68th Street</p> <p>and thought of the orchids that surround</p> <p>all the waiting rooms in Sloan-Kettering,</p> <p>how their heads dip downward, as if heaven</p> <p>were a hollow beneath the earth.</p> <p>NA: Who are some of the writers who have helped and inspired you?</p> <p>DD: I have had wonderful poets who taught me at Binghamton University: Karen Terebessey, Paul-William Burch, Liz Rosenberg, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, and Joe Weil.</p> <p>I admire poets like David Lehman, for whom scholarship and serious study of various poetic traditions is as important as their creative work. I particularly admire Philip Metres, Martín Espada, and Sascha Feinstein; all three of these men embody values of total empathy, committed social engagement, commendable scholarly rigor, and uncompromising artistic integrity.</p> <p>I’m very grateful for my friendship with the novelist, Tom Bouman, who is one of the most honorable and intelligent men I know. I am grateful for my friendship with Nicole Santalucia, who is like a sister to me, and who introduced me to you, Nin. I am also lucky to count two talented poets and former guest bloggers at BAP as friends: Abby E. Murray and Tara Betts.</p> <p>Two contemporary poets who died too young and whose work I continually reread are Jason Shinder and Joe Salerno.</p> <p>Some younger contemporary poets I admire include: Patricia Colleen Murphy, Jen Levitt, Grace Bonner, and drea brown.</p> <p>Recently, I’ve been reading through and loving <em>The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser</em>.</p> <p>In fiction, I love Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Borges, Twain, Kafka, and Cervantes. I have reread <em>Don Quixote</em> many times, and each time is better than the last.</p> <p>The poets I return to again and again are the same poets I have been reading since I first fell in love with poetry at eighteen years old: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Stephen Mitchell’s Rilke, William Blake, Christopher Smart, Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams, Russell Edson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Bly’s Miguel Hernandez, and various translations of Federico García Lorca.</p> <p>There are so many poets I love and admire! I could go on for hours. Even when I quarrel with a poem, I feel like it is helping me in some hard-to-define sense.</p> <p>NA: You also teach high school? What a gift you must be to those students! Tell me,</p> <p>What is the most challenging part of teaching poetry?</p> <p>DD: I try not to teach it. I try to make poetry the center of my classroom. I try to model my engagement with poetry, which is more essential than academic. I begin the school year by reciting Robert Pinsky’s “Samurai Song,” which begins: “When I had no roof/ I made audacity my roof.” On the door to my classroom, I have the Ezra Pound poem, “Commission,” which begins “Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied.” Most of my career as a public high school teacher has been spent teaching students with learning disabilities in a general education setting. Despite the fact that many of my students are reluctant readers, I’ve been able to expose hundreds of students over the years to the work of poets as various as T.S. Eliot, William Shakespeare, Rodrigo Toscano, Eileen Myles, Wanda Coleman, Christina Rossetti, Kay Ryan, Reginald Dwayne Betts, H.D., Frank O’Hara, Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rae Armantrout, Robert Lowell, and so on. And the wonderful thing about working with kids is that they meet these poets and their poems with none of the prejudices that an experienced reader might…for these kids, a poem is a poem is a poem. A poem by Natalie Diaz enters the air of the classroom with the same bona fides as the best lines of Tennyson. Many of the students I teach will go no further than community college, many will wind up working in retail, most, it’s safe to assume, will never seek out a book of poetry in their adult lives. However, in tenth grade they will have swam with me and Melville and the Maldive shark.</p> <p>Last year, my wife and I were in a local clothing store and when we went up to the counter, the girl at the register was one of my former students. I hadn’t seen her since she graduated about seven years previously and, honestly, I did not remember her at all. When she saw me, however, she very excitedly rolled up her sleeves and held out her wrists to show me the words “Nothing Gold” on the left, and “Can Stay” on the right, tattooed in beautiful green and yellow cursive. Then, she thanked me for introducing her to the poem. I’d like to think of this former student’s tattoos as a metaphor for what I hope to accomplish as a teacher. You never know what few words might be carried at the wrist through much suffering, might offer a calligraphy of hope, might overwrite a racing pulse.</p> <p>NA: I am always interested in titles. When did you know that this was your title?</p> <p>DD: The line is adapted from a line in William Carlos Williams’ <em>Paterson</em>. I have been in love with <em>Paterson</em> and WCW since I was an undergraduate in Liz Rosenberg’s advanced poetry workshop. Liz encouraged me to write my own <em>Paterson</em> about Binghamton, NY, my hometown. I spent years writing mostly bad poems about this place. Years later, thanks to my teachers, the New Jersey poets, Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Joe Weil, I became acquainted with the real Paterson, New Jersey, and Williams’ work gained added nuance for me.</p> <p>After my father died (he had a rare form of thyroid cancer along with bile duct cancer), I returned to <em>Paterson</em>. The sprawl and beauty of Williams’ failed epic gained poignancy when I read it against the profound suffering and degradation I witnessed firsthand as I took care of my father throughout his final illness. Poetry at its finest affirms the dignity of human life, a dignity which fountains through even the worst degradation and the most profound suffering.</p> <p>NA: Is there anything else you’d like to say about this book?</p> <p>Just that this book chronicles my enthusiasms and loves. In addition to poems about my family and my hometown, there are poems about my heroes: Sun Ra, Thelonious Monk, Don Cherry, Professor Longhair, Muddy Waters, Charles Mingus, Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Mississippi John Hurt, and Junior Kimbrough.</p> <p>I’m a practicing Roman Catholic and the book includes many poems that explore issues related to faith (in the Kierkegaardian sense—as a process of infinite becoming).</p> <p>The book also explores the limits and backwaters of American empire.</p> <p>I try to write from what the great Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh called the parochial perspective. The provincial poet, Kavanagh argues, “does not trust what his eyes see until he has heard what the metropolis—towards which his eyes are turned—has to say on the subject.” The parochial poet, on the other hand, never doubts the artistic and social validity inherent in his home turf. My home turf is as much the music and art that I love as it is upstate New York, my family, and my Catholicism.</p> <p>For all the flaws in this first book, I’m proud of it. If there is anything good in it, the merit belongs to the excellent teachers that I have had over the years and to the people whom I love, especially to my wife, Christina.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a href="ninandrews.com"><strong>Nin Andrews&#39;</strong> </a>most recent poetry collection&#0160;is <em><a href="http://madhat-press.com/products/our-lady-of-the-orgasm-by-nin-andrews">Our Lady of the Orgasm</a></em>, published by Plume Editions, 2016.</p> <p><strong>Dante Di Stefano</strong> is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Stone-Endlessly-Flight-Poems/dp/1944467025"><em>Love is a Stone Endlessly in Flight</em> </a>(Brighthorse Books, 2016). His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in Brilliant Corners, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Los Angeles Review, New Orleans Review, Obsidian, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, The Writer&#39;s Chronicle, and elsewhere. Most recently, he is the winner of the Red Hen Press Poetry Award and Crab Orchard Review’s Special Issue Feature Award in Poetry. He lives in Endwell, New York.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c8b3d123970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-11-25T22:50:15Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8b3d121970bThank you, David and Stacey (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-11-25T22:50:15Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23d9b0e970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="The Oxford" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23d9b0e970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23d9b0e970c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="The Oxford" /></a>For this week of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d say a few words of thanks to David and Stacey Lehman for all they do for poets and poetry--and especially for this blog. Like so many poets, I love stopping by here, and I am so grateful&#0160;to Stacey for keeping it going through good and difficult&#0160;times.&#0160;</p> <p>I also wanted to thank David for his many books and anthologies. Today, as on many days, I’ve been flipping through his <em>Oxford Book of American Poetry</em>—an all-time favorite of mine.</p> <p>Now, let me first confess (a bit sheepishly) that I am not a natural fan of anthologies. I especially don’t care for the thin-paged <em>Norton’s </em>that make me feel as if I am in a chilly and distant room full of discordant strangers who have little to say to another and even less to me. (I tend to think that there’s something about the nature of poets, both on the page and in the body, that likes to be seen as the one and only.) But Lehman’s Oxford anthology breaks that distance down, first with its wonderful selection of poems (so I know immediately I am in good company), and second, by its informative and fun introductions to each poet. I particularly love thinking about&#0160;how and why poets write--comparing and contrasting their visions.</p> <p>About A. R. Ammons, &#0160;Lehman points out that “he writes in the American idiom, switches rapidly from low to high diction, and in one mood may remind his readers that “magnificent” in North Carolina comes out ‘Maggie-went-a-fishing.’ But his sly wit does not obscure the visionary nature of his poetry, the aim to affirm the magnificence of creation, however lowly in appearance and dark in design. Asked what moved him to write poetry, Ammons commented ‘anxiety.’”</p> <p>Charles Simic, on the other hand, wrote once that “Awe is my religion, and mystery is my church.” And he compared poets to six-legged dogs.</p> <p>Berryman, not surprisingly had a less amusing idea of the life of the poet. Lehman quotes him saying that the “artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he’s in business.”</p> <p>Sharon Olds commented that it was easier to write poetry than not to write poetry. And Jean Garrigue “described her work as a ‘dialogue of self with soul, the quarrel of self with world.’”</p> <p>And I love this excerpt from the introduction to Robert Creeley:</p> <p>“Hall observes that if you took a sentence from a late Henry James novel like <em>The Ambassadors</em> and arranged it in two-word lines, you would ‘have a Creeely poem worrying out its self-consciousness.’ Creeley seems often to substitute speech rhythms for imagery as the engine of the poem.”</p> <p>I could keep going, but I think every poet should own her own copy of this anthology. I cannot imagine how long it must have taken to select the poems for this book and write all these wonderful introductions. But as a result, the book promises its readers as many hours of pleasure.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23d9b0e970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="The Oxford" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23d9b0e970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23d9b0e970c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="The Oxford" /></a>For this week of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d say a few words of thanks to David and Stacey Lehman for all they do for poets and poetry--and especially for this blog. Like so many poets, I love stopping by here, and I am so grateful&#0160;to Stacey for keeping it going through good and difficult&#0160;times.&#0160;</p> <p>I also wanted to thank David for his many books and anthologies. Today, as on many days, I’ve been flipping through his <em>Oxford Book of American Poetry</em>—an all-time favorite of mine.</p> <p>Now, let me first confess (a bit sheepishly) that I am not a natural fan of anthologies. I especially don’t care for the thin-paged <em>Norton’s </em>that make me feel as if I am in a chilly and distant room full of discordant strangers who have little to say to another and even less to me. (I tend to think that there’s something about the nature of poets, both on the page and in the body, that likes to be seen as the one and only.) But Lehman’s Oxford anthology breaks that distance down, first with its wonderful selection of poems (so I know immediately I am in good company), and second, by its informative and fun introductions to each poet. I particularly love thinking about&#0160;how and why poets write--comparing and contrasting their visions.</p> <p>About A. R. Ammons, &#0160;Lehman points out that “he writes in the American idiom, switches rapidly from low to high diction, and in one mood may remind his readers that “magnificent” in North Carolina comes out ‘Maggie-went-a-fishing.’ But his sly wit does not obscure the visionary nature of his poetry, the aim to affirm the magnificence of creation, however lowly in appearance and dark in design. Asked what moved him to write poetry, Ammons commented ‘anxiety.’”</p> <p>Charles Simic, on the other hand, wrote once that “Awe is my religion, and mystery is my church.” And he compared poets to six-legged dogs.</p> <p>Berryman, not surprisingly had a less amusing idea of the life of the poet. Lehman quotes him saying that the “artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he’s in business.”</p> <p>Sharon Olds commented that it was easier to write poetry than not to write poetry. And Jean Garrigue “described her work as a ‘dialogue of self with soul, the quarrel of self with world.’”</p> <p>And I love this excerpt from the introduction to Robert Creeley:</p> <p>“Hall observes that if you took a sentence from a late Henry James novel like <em>The Ambassadors</em> and arranged it in two-word lines, you would ‘have a Creeely poem worrying out its self-consciousness.’ Creeley seems often to substitute speech rhythms for imagery as the engine of the poem.”</p> <p>I could keep going, but I think every poet should own her own copy of this anthology. I cannot imagine how long it must have taken to select the poems for this book and write all these wonderful introductions. But as a result, the book promises its readers as many hours of pleasure.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d2399291970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-11-14T21:04:16Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d239928f970cThe Jumblies after Edward Lear (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-11-14T21:04:16Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2397e7d970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Edward Lear, Jumblies 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2397e7d970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2397e7d970c-500wi" title="Edward Lear, Jumblies 2" /></a></p> <p>Forgive the political nature of this comic--I like to think of this blog as a sacred space where we all breathe more easily. But&#0160;all week I have been thinking of this Edward Lear poem. And how as a girl, whenever my mother read it, I would complain that you can&#39;t possibly go to sea in a sieve--</p> <p>to which she answered:</p> <p><em>Why, there&#39;s nothing to worry about! Because you can always sleep in a crockery-jar with your feet wrapped in pinky paper, all folded neat, and fastened with a pin.</em></p> <p>I think that&#39;s my favorite stanza of the poem:</p> <p>The water it soon came in, it did,<br />The water it soon came in;<br />So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet<br />In a pinky paper all folded neat,<br />And they fastened it down with a pin.<br />And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,<br />And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!<br />Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,<br />Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,<br />While round in our Sieve we spin!’<br />Far and few, far and few,<br />Are the lands where the Jumblies live;<br />Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,<br />And they went to sea in a Sieve.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2397e7d970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Edward Lear, Jumblies 2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2397e7d970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d2397e7d970c-500wi" title="Edward Lear, Jumblies 2" /></a></p> <p>Forgive the political nature of this comic--I like to think of this blog as a sacred space where we all breathe more easily. But&#0160;all week I have been thinking of this Edward Lear poem. And how as a girl, whenever my mother read it, I would complain that you can&#39;t possibly go to sea in a sieve--</p> <p>to which she answered:</p> <p><em>Why, there&#39;s nothing to worry about! Because you can always sleep in a crockery-jar with your feet wrapped in pinky paper, all folded neat, and fastened with a pin.</em></p> <p>I think that&#39;s my favorite stanza of the poem:</p> <p>The water it soon came in, it did,<br />The water it soon came in;<br />So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet<br />In a pinky paper all folded neat,<br />And they fastened it down with a pin.<br />And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,<br />And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!<br />Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,<br />Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,<br />While round in our Sieve we spin!’<br />Far and few, far and few,<br />Are the lands where the Jumblies live;<br />Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,<br />And they went to sea in a Sieve.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d236fa90970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-11-07T17:53:14Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d236fa8e970c_________ is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth (by Nin Andrews, Nicole Santalucia & David Lehman)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2018-01-20T04:52:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times; font-size: 12pt;"> &#0160;<a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8ad3120970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Larkin, Deprivation quote" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8ad3120970b img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8ad3120970b-500wi" title="Larkin, Deprivation quote" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.”&#0160;Philip Larkin</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">1.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This quote from Larkin made me ask myself, _______ are for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.&#0160;I started to wonder how other poets might answer this. What are your daffodils?&#0160;&#0160;How would my favorite poets answer this?&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I thought that maybe New York City or painters would be for Frank O’Hara what daffodils were for Wordsworth, though it’s funnier to say that lunch is for O&#39;Hara what daffodils were for Wordsworth.&#0160; Barbies are for Denise Duhamel what daffodils were for Wordsworth, and angels could be for Rilke what daffodils were for Wordsworth. Orgasms might be my own personal daffodils, as well as Elvis and Jim and James Dean. I do love all three. Last night I dreamt of Elvis singing, <em>Are you lonesome tonight . . . Are you worried we drifted apart,</em> and I was, even in my sleep. I woke up thinking of the subconscious or unconscious . . .</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Of how the unconscious might be for Jung what lonely clouds were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The penis might be for Freud what Tintern Abbey was for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The ground of being was for Tillich what the leap of faith was for Kierkegaard. The overman was for Neitzche what the stranger was for Camus.&#0160;Or would it be Sisyphus?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Today is Camus’ birthday. <em>The New Yorker</em> once called Camus the Don Draper of existentialism.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Maybe meaninglessness was for Camus what deprivation was for Larkin . . .</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I read in <em>The Paris Review</em> that Larkin tried to make every day and every year exactly the same.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">2.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">My mind was spinning with all of this when I talked to Nicole Santalucia who joined in to say:&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A ferry ride is for Whitman what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A beard is for Whitman what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Deep breathing is for Whitman what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A bulge in tight jeans is for Whitman what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A secret is for Dickinson what a pants suit is for Hillary Clinton</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">An attic is for Dickinson what a broach is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A fly is for Dickinson what a nipple is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stillness is for Dickinson what Picasso is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A nobody is for Dickinson what an everybody is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">An apple tree is for Dickinson what a poodle is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A raindrop is for Williams what salvation is for Bradstreet</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A chicken is for Williams what a husband is for Bradstreet</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A black dress is for Maria Gillan what a paintbrush is for Frank O&#39;Hara</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">3.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Then David Lehman added his commentary::</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The irony is that Larkin&#39;s statement (which I quote in my poem &quot;Desolation Row&quot;) is applicable not only to Larkin but to Wordsworth as well. In other words, for Wordsworth, too, deprivation was what daffodils were to the character who sees them in &quot;I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.&quot;&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">These are the crucial lines: &quot;For oft when on my couch I lie, / In vacant or in pensive mood / They [the daffodils] flash upon the inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude.&quot; The condition that triggers off the memory is solitude and vacancy - deprivation, in other words.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">As for me, well, daffodils are for me what deprivation was for Larkin.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Champagne, no pain, and Mary Jane are for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A phone conversation with John Ashbery or an email from Nin Andrews is for me what daffodils.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Chocolates, snow, and myself are for David Shapiro what daffodils are for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Or music stands, philodendrons, and philosophy are for David Shapiro what daffodils are for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Shapiro is on the phone right now and I can hear him typing in the background. I recommend &quot;champagne at night&quot; to lift his spirits.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">David (Shapiro) says: &quot;&#39;Champagne at Night&#39; is a good title for you. Lindsay thinks so, too.&quot;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I am writing a novel while we talk.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">O Natalie Wood!&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">You are to me what Natalie Wood was for me in 1964.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Kim Novak is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Kim Novak does not stand for anything other than Kim Novak.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Ava Gardner said, &quot;Elizabeth Taylor is pretty. I was beautiful.&quot;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Marilyn Monroe singing &quot;Heat Wave&quot; is for me what fishing and hunting were for Ernest Hemingway.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for me what roses were for Robert Burns.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for me what silence was for John Cage.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for me what Paris would be for me if this were 1973.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for me what a psalm was for David.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for David what David is for David.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A two-thousand dollar violin is for David Shapiro what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Alban Berg is for David Shapiro what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A James Tate poem is for John Ashbery what daffodils were for Wordsworth</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A painting by Matisse is for Mrs. Matisse what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A flood is for Noah what the Tower of Babel was for modern linguistics.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Aer Lingus is for Charles Mingus what the Maltese Falcon is for Same Spade.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">According to David Shapiro,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Einstein said</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">God is subtle but not malicious,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">And I agreed.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In fact, I added,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">God was for Albert Einstein what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: &#39;times new roman&#39;, times; font-size: 12pt;"> &#0160;<a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8ad3120970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Larkin, Deprivation quote" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8ad3120970b img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8ad3120970b-500wi" title="Larkin, Deprivation quote" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.”&#0160;Philip Larkin</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">1.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This quote from Larkin made me ask myself, _______ are for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.&#0160;I started to wonder how other poets might answer this. What are your daffodils?&#0160;&#0160;How would my favorite poets answer this?&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I thought that maybe New York City or painters would be for Frank O’Hara what daffodils were for Wordsworth, though it’s funnier to say that lunch is for O&#39;Hara what daffodils were for Wordsworth.&#0160; Barbies are for Denise Duhamel what daffodils were for Wordsworth, and angels could be for Rilke what daffodils were for Wordsworth. Orgasms might be my own personal daffodils, as well as Elvis and Jim and James Dean. I do love all three. Last night I dreamt of Elvis singing, <em>Are you lonesome tonight . . . Are you worried we drifted apart,</em> and I was, even in my sleep. I woke up thinking of the subconscious or unconscious . . .</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Of how the unconscious might be for Jung what lonely clouds were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The penis might be for Freud what Tintern Abbey was for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The ground of being was for Tillich what the leap of faith was for Kierkegaard. The overman was for Neitzche what the stranger was for Camus.&#0160;Or would it be Sisyphus?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Today is Camus’ birthday. <em>The New Yorker</em> once called Camus the Don Draper of existentialism.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Maybe meaninglessness was for Camus what deprivation was for Larkin . . .</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I read in <em>The Paris Review</em> that Larkin tried to make every day and every year exactly the same.</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">2.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">My mind was spinning with all of this when I talked to Nicole Santalucia who joined in to say:&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A ferry ride is for Whitman what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A beard is for Whitman what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Deep breathing is for Whitman what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A bulge in tight jeans is for Whitman what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A secret is for Dickinson what a pants suit is for Hillary Clinton</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">An attic is for Dickinson what a broach is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A fly is for Dickinson what a nipple is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stillness is for Dickinson what Picasso is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A nobody is for Dickinson what an everybody is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">An apple tree is for Dickinson what a poodle is for Gertrude Stein</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A raindrop is for Williams what salvation is for Bradstreet</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A chicken is for Williams what a husband is for Bradstreet</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A black dress is for Maria Gillan what a paintbrush is for Frank O&#39;Hara</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">3.&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Then David Lehman added his commentary::</span></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The irony is that Larkin&#39;s statement (which I quote in my poem &quot;Desolation Row&quot;) is applicable not only to Larkin but to Wordsworth as well. In other words, for Wordsworth, too, deprivation was what daffodils were to the character who sees them in &quot;I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.&quot;&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">These are the crucial lines: &quot;For oft when on my couch I lie, / In vacant or in pensive mood / They [the daffodils] flash upon the inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude.&quot; The condition that triggers off the memory is solitude and vacancy - deprivation, in other words.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">As for me, well, daffodils are for me what deprivation was for Larkin.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Champagne, no pain, and Mary Jane are for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A phone conversation with John Ashbery or an email from Nin Andrews is for me what daffodils.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Chocolates, snow, and myself are for David Shapiro what daffodils are for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Or music stands, philodendrons, and philosophy are for David Shapiro what daffodils are for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Shapiro is on the phone right now and I can hear him typing in the background. I recommend &quot;champagne at night&quot; to lift his spirits.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">David (Shapiro) says: &quot;&#39;Champagne at Night&#39; is a good title for you. Lindsay thinks so, too.&quot;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I am writing a novel while we talk.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">O Natalie Wood!&#0160;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">You are to me what Natalie Wood was for me in 1964.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Kim Novak is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Kim Novak does not stand for anything other than Kim Novak.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Ava Gardner said, &quot;Elizabeth Taylor is pretty. I was beautiful.&quot;</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Marilyn Monroe singing &quot;Heat Wave&quot; is for me what fishing and hunting were for Ernest Hemingway.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for me what roses were for Robert Burns.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for me what silence was for John Cage.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for me what Paris would be for me if this were 1973.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for me what a psalm was for David.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Stacey is for David what David is for David.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A two-thousand dollar violin is for David Shapiro what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Alban Berg is for David Shapiro what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A James Tate poem is for John Ashbery what daffodils were for Wordsworth</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A painting by Matisse is for Mrs. Matisse what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A flood is for Noah what the Tower of Babel was for modern linguistics.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Aer Lingus is for Charles Mingus what the Maltese Falcon is for Same Spade.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">According to David Shapiro,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Einstein said</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">God is subtle but not malicious,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">And I agreed.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In fact, I added,</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">God was for Albert Einstein what daffodils were for Wordsworth.</span></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d234663f970c Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-10-31T17:34:04Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d234663d970cWhat Do You Want? [by Nin Andrews and Nicole Santalucia]http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-10-31T17:34:04Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23465b9970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Comic blurb fan 2" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23465b9970c image-full img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23465b9970c-800wi" title="Comic blurb fan 2" /></a><br /><br />Nicole Santalucia and I were talking about po-biz,&#0160;and I thought of this comic. As I told her, I don&#39;t mean to offend anyone. After all we are all in this together, needing each other&#39;s support and favors. But as Nicole put it:</p> <p><em>This is the drug, the race and chase, what the MFA machine is pumping out. The goal should be building writing communities and connections between each other instead of trying to be &quot;the one.&quot; Can&#39;t many of us be &quot;the ones&quot;? There are so many good poets today and we need to stop racing one another. On the other hand, in order to get a teaching job all this stuff needs to happen and there are only so many teaching jobs . .</em></p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23465b9970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Comic blurb fan 2" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23465b9970c image-full img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d23465b9970c-800wi" title="Comic blurb fan 2" /></a><br /><br />Nicole Santalucia and I were talking about po-biz,&#0160;and I thought of this comic. As I told her, I don&#39;t mean to offend anyone. After all we are all in this together, needing each other&#39;s support and favors. But as Nicole put it:</p> <p><em>This is the drug, the race and chase, what the MFA machine is pumping out. The goal should be building writing communities and connections between each other instead of trying to be &quot;the one.&quot; Can&#39;t many of us be &quot;the ones&quot;? There are so many good poets today and we need to stop racing one another. On the other hand, in order to get a teaching job all this stuff needs to happen and there are only so many teaching jobs . .</em></p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01bb094ae8e8970d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-10-27T00:37:20Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301bb094ae8e6970dWhat If You Slept (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-10-27T00:37:20Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d231dd28970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Coleridge What If 4" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d231dd28970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d231dd28970c-500wi" title="Coleridge What If 4" /></a><br /><br />(&quot;What If You Slept&quot; has always been one of my favorite poems.)&#0160;<br /><br />The other day I was listening to two of my poet-friends complain bitterly about their parents. Among other things, they talked of how they wished their folks had an interest in literature. No one in their families read books. I couldn’t join in. After all, I grew up in a house of wall-to-wall books. I will never be as literate as my parents, and I owe much of what I know about poetry to my mother who read aloud from my earliest memories. I used to frustrate her to no end, asking her to stop when I liked a line or poem, and read it again. And then again.</p> <p><em>Not again?</em> she’d say.</p> <p><em>Just one more time,</em> I’d say. And we’d go around and around.</p> <p>And in my mind, later, I would play with the lines. So as a girl this poem might be:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What if you slept</p> <p>And what if</p> <p>In your sleep</p> <p>You dreamed</p> <p>And what if</p> <p>In your dream</p> <p>You went to heaven</p> <p>And there—there was a rain shower</p> <p>And when you awoke,</p> <p>You were soaked to the bone . . .</p> <p>Or:</p> <p>And there—you discovered secret powers</p> <p>And when you awoke</p> <p>You could see through walls . . .</p> <p>Or:</p> <p>And there—your soul was made of sugar and flour</p> <p>And when you awoke</p> <p>You knew you were destined to be a baker . . .</p> <p>Or:</p> <p>And there—you climbed to the tip of God’s tower . . .</p> <p>And when you awoke</p> <p>You were still holding an angel by the finger . . .</p> <p>I would keep going and going. This was one of the ways I passed my time. I called this game making-and-filling-in-the-blanks. I always liked games of fill-in-the-blank. My mother said if I continued in this way, I would never remember the correct versions of poems. She was right.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d231dd28970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Coleridge What If 4" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d231dd28970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d231dd28970c-500wi" title="Coleridge What If 4" /></a><br /><br />(&quot;What If You Slept&quot; has always been one of my favorite poems.)&#0160;<br /><br />The other day I was listening to two of my poet-friends complain bitterly about their parents. Among other things, they talked of how they wished their folks had an interest in literature. No one in their families read books. I couldn’t join in. After all, I grew up in a house of wall-to-wall books. I will never be as literate as my parents, and I owe much of what I know about poetry to my mother who read aloud from my earliest memories. I used to frustrate her to no end, asking her to stop when I liked a line or poem, and read it again. And then again.</p> <p><em>Not again?</em> she’d say.</p> <p><em>Just one more time,</em> I’d say. And we’d go around and around.</p> <p>And in my mind, later, I would play with the lines. So as a girl this poem might be:</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>What if you slept</p> <p>And what if</p> <p>In your sleep</p> <p>You dreamed</p> <p>And what if</p> <p>In your dream</p> <p>You went to heaven</p> <p>And there—there was a rain shower</p> <p>And when you awoke,</p> <p>You were soaked to the bone . . .</p> <p>Or:</p> <p>And there—you discovered secret powers</p> <p>And when you awoke</p> <p>You could see through walls . . .</p> <p>Or:</p> <p>And there—your soul was made of sugar and flour</p> <p>And when you awoke</p> <p>You knew you were destined to be a baker . . .</p> <p>Or:</p> <p>And there—you climbed to the tip of God’s tower . . .</p> <p>And when you awoke</p> <p>You were still holding an angel by the finger . . .</p> <p>I would keep going and going. This was one of the ways I passed my time. I called this game making-and-filling-in-the-blanks. I always liked games of fill-in-the-blank. My mother said if I continued in this way, I would never remember the correct versions of poems. She was right.</p> <p>&#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01bb0943d90c970d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-10-15T20:37:05Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0943d90a970dYou Don't Know What You've Got Till You've Won (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-10-15T20:37:05Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d22a6ccc970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Nobel Prize comic" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d22a6ccc970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d22a6ccc970c-500wi" title="Nobel Prize comic" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>After hearing about the Nobel Prize for Literature, I was reminded of my first grade class, particularly of a workbook for what was then called New Math. The workbook included pictures of sets of objects. Students were supposed to circle the object that did not belong. So one picture might include a bird, a dog, a pig, and a sandwich. The next, a fork, a spoon, a knife, and a tennis shoe. The next, a ring, a watch, a necklace, and a frog. What this had to do with math, I am still not certain.</p> <p>But I liked the pictures, and I loved to think up stories in which one might want to include the circled items. I would explain to Mrs. Wallace, my teacher, that a sandwich could be used to feed the bird, the dog, and the pig. A fork comes in handy if you have a knot in your shoelace. The frog, of course, might have been a prince or princess once upon a time.</p> <p>I was also reminded of discussions I had with the poet, Eleanor Ross Taylor, back when I was just out of college and first trying to understand the literary world. Eleanor had an acerbic wit and was unsparingly honest. Literary prizes, she suggested, are not all that you think they are. She talked at length about the different presses and literary connections and publishers one might wish to have in order to be a contender, and I remember feeling both disillusioned and discouraged. I concluded that literary success is a bit like economic success in our country. There is the top tiny %, now referred to as the 1%, and that one dreams of becoming a part of, and then there is the 99%.</p> <p>Eleanor also suspected that certain winners are actually compromise-candidates. <em>It’s hard to come to a consensus</em>, she said, adding, <em>we writers don’t agree on many things.</em> That was especially true for Eleanor and me. She loved to ask me who my favorite writers were, and&#0160;inevitably she would tell me just how much she disliked them. About my beloved Garcia Marquez, she said, <em>I simply cannot abide him. </em>Of the French surrealist poets I adored in those days, she said<em>, Really, I’d rather not get a headache. But you just tell me why I should. </em> Once, when I showed her a poem by Russell Edson, she said, <em>I don’t know what that is. Do you? </em>And we both burst out laughing. &#0160;</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d22a6ccc970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Nobel Prize comic" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d22a6ccc970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d22a6ccc970c-500wi" title="Nobel Prize comic" /></a></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>After hearing about the Nobel Prize for Literature, I was reminded of my first grade class, particularly of a workbook for what was then called New Math. The workbook included pictures of sets of objects. Students were supposed to circle the object that did not belong. So one picture might include a bird, a dog, a pig, and a sandwich. The next, a fork, a spoon, a knife, and a tennis shoe. The next, a ring, a watch, a necklace, and a frog. What this had to do with math, I am still not certain.</p> <p>But I liked the pictures, and I loved to think up stories in which one might want to include the circled items. I would explain to Mrs. Wallace, my teacher, that a sandwich could be used to feed the bird, the dog, and the pig. A fork comes in handy if you have a knot in your shoelace. The frog, of course, might have been a prince or princess once upon a time.</p> <p>I was also reminded of discussions I had with the poet, Eleanor Ross Taylor, back when I was just out of college and first trying to understand the literary world. Eleanor had an acerbic wit and was unsparingly honest. Literary prizes, she suggested, are not all that you think they are. She talked at length about the different presses and literary connections and publishers one might wish to have in order to be a contender, and I remember feeling both disillusioned and discouraged. I concluded that literary success is a bit like economic success in our country. There is the top tiny %, now referred to as the 1%, and that one dreams of becoming a part of, and then there is the 99%.</p> <p>Eleanor also suspected that certain winners are actually compromise-candidates. <em>It’s hard to come to a consensus</em>, she said, adding, <em>we writers don’t agree on many things.</em> That was especially true for Eleanor and me. She loved to ask me who my favorite writers were, and&#0160;inevitably she would tell me just how much she disliked them. About my beloved Garcia Marquez, she said, <em>I simply cannot abide him. </em>Of the French surrealist poets I adored in those days, she said<em>, Really, I’d rather not get a headache. But you just tell me why I should. </em> Once, when I showed her a poem by Russell Edson, she said, <em>I don’t know what that is. Do you? </em>And we both burst out laughing. &#0160;</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c8699004970b Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-06-06T17:03:43Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8699002970bA HUNDRED REVISIONS OR A MAN WITH A SINGLE WHITE WING (by Nin Andrews)http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-06-06T17:03:43Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d1f37290970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Eliot Prufrock" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d1f37290970c img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d1f37290970c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Eliot Prufrock" /></a><br /><br /><br /></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 1. Different Ways to Say Fuck</p> <p>I had five eye operations as a girl. After each one, I imagined myself emerging with perfect and uncrossed eyes. I would wait anxiously for the day I could peel back the bandage. But the surgeries were never entirely successful. The doctor always suggested that I have <em>just one more operation</em>.</p> <p>These operations were complicated by my reaction to the anesthesia. The eye doctor had difficulty waking me after surgery. He once called me his Sleeping Beauty, but it was a sleep that worried him. I was sick, too, and usually confined to bed for a week or two afterwards.</p> <p>During that time of recovery, my mother would visit my room with a pile of old books to read aloud. She always chose volumes of myths, fairy tales, poetry, parables, or folk tales, usually antiquated books with beautiful pictures and ornate language. She read one story after another, hour after hour, as I lay, dozing, hypnotized by her beautiful reading voice. A former school teacher, she liked to ask questions about the stories. My answers, she complained, didn’t stay close to the text. I usually told her what a story reminded me of.</p> <p>When I was eight and recovering from my third operation, for example, my mother read me the myth of Persephone. I said the myth made me think of a fight I had had with Trig, the farmhand’s son, a fight that began when he asked, <em>You see what those cats are doing?</em> pointing at the mating tabbies, Tigger and Rain. <em>People do that, too. Only they call it fucking. And one day I’m gonna’ fuck your sister, Sal. </em>I couldn’t help it. I slugged him as hard as I could. That was the day I got my first black eye.</p> <p>My sister, I told my mother, was like Persephone. Only she wasn’t stolen yet.</p> <p>My mother blinked a few times before saying, <em>You shouldn’t get in fights. It’s not ladylike.</em> And then she added, <em>Don’t ever use that word again. And you know which word I mean. If you ever tell a story like that, find another way to say that word. </em></p> <p><em>&#0160;</em><em>What other way? </em>I asked.</p> <p><em>Think about it,</em> she said. <em>You’re a smart child. For every word you use, for every sentence you speak, there are many other and better words or sentences to say the same thing</em>.</p> <p>For years after I thought of different ways to say <em>fuck</em>.</p> <p>***</p> <ol start="2"> <li>Fucked Up</li> </ol> <p>In my freshman year in college, I had a nervous breakdown. I rarely talk about this. Instead I prefer to edit that year out of my life. But the fact remains; I developed what I called a stutter in my mind. I felt as if I were becoming a stuck-record, going over and over the same sentences, thoughts, and ideas.</p> <p>I don’t know if this experience is particularly unusual—after all, many people obsess. But it became a problem when I was writing. I would try to write a paragraph, but struggle to get past the first line. I would write and rewrite it as many as ten times. Then I would do the same with the second sentence and the third. When I completed a paragraph, I would revise it.</p> <p>I would also change my topic, or my approach to a topic.</p> <p>This problem began when I had a certain professor, Dr. B., who assigned an essay a week and then insisted on examining every sentence his students wrote, suggesting alternate ways of saying the same thing. He wanted to open us up to <em>the possibilities of the imagination, grammar, and the English Language.</em></p> <p>I can still hear his voice in my head as he read aloud one of my essays, pausing again and again to say, <em>This sentence works okay, but how could you say it differently?</em> Or, <em>Are you certain that’s how you want to say this? </em>If I didn’t answer, he would suggest alternatives.</p> <p>After a while I saw every sentence as many sentences, or as a potential multiple choice test.</p> <p>Worse were the grammatical options the professor offered. <em>In this paragraph,</em> he said once, <em>I see three compound sentences in a row. Why not rearrange the third sentence so that you have an introductory subordinate clause? And break up the second sentence into two simple, declarative sentences. </em></p> <p><em>&#0160;</em>A grammarian I will never be.</p> <p>Soon my choice of sentence structure became another kind of multiple choice test. Or a game show. Will it be sentence structure number 1, 2, or 3?</p> <p>I also found myself pondering the use of commas, particularly the Oxford comma which he preferred to leave out but said, at least in some cases, is necessary. And the comma before <em>which</em>, which is used when <em>which</em> is nonrestrictive but not when <em>which</em> is restrictive, and which I still find confusing. A case in point: the <em>which</em> in the first sentence of this paragraph.</p> <p><em>It’s just comma sense,</em> the professor would joke, but I wasn’t sure I had it.</p> <p>In addition, there were the professor’s obsessions, particularly with the conditional and subjunctive cases. He said on one of my papers, <em>Your use of the subjunctive is correct here, I think, but not necessary because the conditional would serve just as well unless you really think uncertainty is paramount. You should know that use of the subjunctive is currently in decline in the English language. But the conditional is also not ideal. Why not write in a more assertive tone?</em></p> <p><em>&#0160;</em>He especially disliked semicolons. He hated how we students used them <em>willy nilly</em>, saying, <em>The link between two independent clauses must be logical if one is to use a semicolon</em>, <em>just as the link between human beings should be logical if they are to get married, but of course, it rarely is. </em></p> <p>And there were also the problems with the elliptical clause, as in <em>better than me </em>vs. <em>better than I, </em>and the split infinitives, and sentences ending with a preposition.</p> <p><em>&#0160;</em>Finally there was his suspicion of the zeugma. <em>Your compound direct object, </em>he said once,<em> could be considered a zeugma, but I would want to know that you know what a zeugma is. And that you decided consciously to use one here. Otherwise consider changing or dropping this sentence.</em></p> <p>Instead I said I needed to drop out for a while.</p> <p><em>Why?</em> he asked me, looking startled. I said that I had just changed too many sentences, paragraphs, and my mind. Sometimes there is no more time for decisions and indecisions and visions and revisions. I was trying to be funny.</p> <p><em>I am sorry to hear that</em>, he said, adding under his breath, <em>That’s fucked up</em>.</p> <p>***</p> <ol start="3"> <li>In Defense of Madness</li> </ol> <p>That <em>fucked up</em> experience, or mind-stutter as I call it, has haunted me ever since. I still rewrite excessively, trying and failing to correct my grammatical errors. I still think I should edit any piece of writing, at least one more time. I still dream I am in Dr. B.s class, writing and rewriting those weekly essays. And I remember many of essays from his class. After all, I tried to write them as many as twenty or thirty times.</p> <p>Just last week I was reminded of the essay I wrote on Jane Eyre when I watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aELFBiiMXEI" title="Jen Campbell on Jane Eyre">a video</a> by the amazing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/jenvcampbell">Jen Campbell</a>, who, in her witty and entertaining style, illuminated aspects of the text and offered her insights, including the idea that Bertha is an aspect of Jane. (Who else could get 4,000 people to watch a talk on Jane Eyre?)</p> <p>I was reminded of my title from freshman year, <em>In Defense of Bertha</em>, and how I wrote that many women should have a mad woman in their attic. After all, I was meeting aspects of my own just then.</p> <p>I remember how I wasn’t certain that I could or should write about madness, Bertha’s or my own. My professor pointed out, I spent entirely too much time in the conditional case, pondering and overusing the words like <em>perhaps, probably, maybe, might</em>, <em>would, should, </em>and <em>could.</em></p> <p>He added that women are more prone to this problem, which he called <em>conditional-overuse</em>, adding that men speak more naturally and emphatically, a comment which has stuck with me and might or might not be true. Perhaps and maybe. Either way, it’s maddening.</p> <p>***</p> <ol start="4"> <li>THE SEVEN SWANS</li> </ol> <p>The more I worked on my Jane Eyre essay, the less I said about the book or Charlotte Bronte.</p> <p>Instead I wrote about the fairytales my mother read aloud to me, specifically about the princesses in fairytale towers (Rapunzel, Maid Maleen, Sleeping Beauty) who were and weren’t like Bertha in her attic. The princesses were, instead, pre-Berthas. Prepubescent. Still waiting for their moment to be kissed and liberated. Or to be de-towered and deflowered.</p> <p>Like Persephone, they were unwittingly waiting for a king to sweep them away. But would he be a king of the underworld or this world? And how could they not want to scream?</p> <p>And then I began to digress even further . . .</p> <p>I wondered whether fairytales ever put men in towers—or in some purgatorial space between heaven and earth. I concluded that there was one fairytale, <em>The Seven Swans</em>, where this is the case.</p> <p>In <em>The Seven Swans</em>, seven brothers are trapped in the bodies of birds. And it is a girl, or their sister, who breaks the evil bird-spell and turns the swans back into men. But she doesn’t completely succeed. One brother is left with a wing in the place of an arm.</p> <p>(Forgive me--I am short-changing the story here, skipping important details including the fact that the sister-savior of the story also spends time in a tower. And she is, of course, rescued and married to a king.)</p> <p>I wondered if the sister worried forever after about the wing she didn’t fix? Did she stay awake at night, thinking of that single wing, dreaming of it rising out of her youngest brother’s back.</p> <p>The wing, I think, is emblematic of how people live happily and unhappily ever after with their odd limbs, their crossed eyes, and troubled minds. Of how, after being poisoned or possessed, after becoming a bird or a sleeping princess or a prisoner of the underworld, one is marked for life. No matter how many hours of therapy one endures, a trace of the sleepiness or poison or the wing is still there. It can be tucked beneath a jacket or otherwise disguised. But the mind remembers, even if it wants to rewrite the past and make it perfect. And then rewrite it again.</p> <p>I have always loved the image of a man with a single white wing.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Nin Andrews&#39; most recent book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Woman-American-Poets-Continuum/dp/1938160614">Why God Is a Woman</a>, was published by BOA Editions. You can&#0160;check out her website <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">here</a>.</p> <p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d1f37290970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Eliot Prufrock" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d1f37290970c img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d1f37290970c-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Eliot Prufrock" /></a><br /><br /><br /></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160; &#0160; &#0160; 1. Different Ways to Say Fuck</p> <p>I had five eye operations as a girl. After each one, I imagined myself emerging with perfect and uncrossed eyes. I would wait anxiously for the day I could peel back the bandage. But the surgeries were never entirely successful. The doctor always suggested that I have <em>just one more operation</em>.</p> <p>These operations were complicated by my reaction to the anesthesia. The eye doctor had difficulty waking me after surgery. He once called me his Sleeping Beauty, but it was a sleep that worried him. I was sick, too, and usually confined to bed for a week or two afterwards.</p> <p>During that time of recovery, my mother would visit my room with a pile of old books to read aloud. She always chose volumes of myths, fairy tales, poetry, parables, or folk tales, usually antiquated books with beautiful pictures and ornate language. She read one story after another, hour after hour, as I lay, dozing, hypnotized by her beautiful reading voice. A former school teacher, she liked to ask questions about the stories. My answers, she complained, didn’t stay close to the text. I usually told her what a story reminded me of.</p> <p>When I was eight and recovering from my third operation, for example, my mother read me the myth of Persephone. I said the myth made me think of a fight I had had with Trig, the farmhand’s son, a fight that began when he asked, <em>You see what those cats are doing?</em> pointing at the mating tabbies, Tigger and Rain. <em>People do that, too. Only they call it fucking. And one day I’m gonna’ fuck your sister, Sal. </em>I couldn’t help it. I slugged him as hard as I could. That was the day I got my first black eye.</p> <p>My sister, I told my mother, was like Persephone. Only she wasn’t stolen yet.</p> <p>My mother blinked a few times before saying, <em>You shouldn’t get in fights. It’s not ladylike.</em> And then she added, <em>Don’t ever use that word again. And you know which word I mean. If you ever tell a story like that, find another way to say that word. </em></p> <p><em>&#0160;</em><em>What other way? </em>I asked.</p> <p><em>Think about it,</em> she said. <em>You’re a smart child. For every word you use, for every sentence you speak, there are many other and better words or sentences to say the same thing</em>.</p> <p>For years after I thought of different ways to say <em>fuck</em>.</p> <p>***</p> <ol start="2"> <li>Fucked Up</li> </ol> <p>In my freshman year in college, I had a nervous breakdown. I rarely talk about this. Instead I prefer to edit that year out of my life. But the fact remains; I developed what I called a stutter in my mind. I felt as if I were becoming a stuck-record, going over and over the same sentences, thoughts, and ideas.</p> <p>I don’t know if this experience is particularly unusual—after all, many people obsess. But it became a problem when I was writing. I would try to write a paragraph, but struggle to get past the first line. I would write and rewrite it as many as ten times. Then I would do the same with the second sentence and the third. When I completed a paragraph, I would revise it.</p> <p>I would also change my topic, or my approach to a topic.</p> <p>This problem began when I had a certain professor, Dr. B., who assigned an essay a week and then insisted on examining every sentence his students wrote, suggesting alternate ways of saying the same thing. He wanted to open us up to <em>the possibilities of the imagination, grammar, and the English Language.</em></p> <p>I can still hear his voice in my head as he read aloud one of my essays, pausing again and again to say, <em>This sentence works okay, but how could you say it differently?</em> Or, <em>Are you certain that’s how you want to say this? </em>If I didn’t answer, he would suggest alternatives.</p> <p>After a while I saw every sentence as many sentences, or as a potential multiple choice test.</p> <p>Worse were the grammatical options the professor offered. <em>In this paragraph,</em> he said once, <em>I see three compound sentences in a row. Why not rearrange the third sentence so that you have an introductory subordinate clause? And break up the second sentence into two simple, declarative sentences. </em></p> <p><em>&#0160;</em>A grammarian I will never be.</p> <p>Soon my choice of sentence structure became another kind of multiple choice test. Or a game show. Will it be sentence structure number 1, 2, or 3?</p> <p>I also found myself pondering the use of commas, particularly the Oxford comma which he preferred to leave out but said, at least in some cases, is necessary. And the comma before <em>which</em>, which is used when <em>which</em> is nonrestrictive but not when <em>which</em> is restrictive, and which I still find confusing. A case in point: the <em>which</em> in the first sentence of this paragraph.</p> <p><em>It’s just comma sense,</em> the professor would joke, but I wasn’t sure I had it.</p> <p>In addition, there were the professor’s obsessions, particularly with the conditional and subjunctive cases. He said on one of my papers, <em>Your use of the subjunctive is correct here, I think, but not necessary because the conditional would serve just as well unless you really think uncertainty is paramount. You should know that use of the subjunctive is currently in decline in the English language. But the conditional is also not ideal. Why not write in a more assertive tone?</em></p> <p><em>&#0160;</em>He especially disliked semicolons. He hated how we students used them <em>willy nilly</em>, saying, <em>The link between two independent clauses must be logical if one is to use a semicolon</em>, <em>just as the link between human beings should be logical if they are to get married, but of course, it rarely is. </em></p> <p>And there were also the problems with the elliptical clause, as in <em>better than me </em>vs. <em>better than I, </em>and the split infinitives, and sentences ending with a preposition.</p> <p><em>&#0160;</em>Finally there was his suspicion of the zeugma. <em>Your compound direct object, </em>he said once,<em> could be considered a zeugma, but I would want to know that you know what a zeugma is. And that you decided consciously to use one here. Otherwise consider changing or dropping this sentence.</em></p> <p>Instead I said I needed to drop out for a while.</p> <p><em>Why?</em> he asked me, looking startled. I said that I had just changed too many sentences, paragraphs, and my mind. Sometimes there is no more time for decisions and indecisions and visions and revisions. I was trying to be funny.</p> <p><em>I am sorry to hear that</em>, he said, adding under his breath, <em>That’s fucked up</em>.</p> <p>***</p> <ol start="3"> <li>In Defense of Madness</li> </ol> <p>That <em>fucked up</em> experience, or mind-stutter as I call it, has haunted me ever since. I still rewrite excessively, trying and failing to correct my grammatical errors. I still think I should edit any piece of writing, at least one more time. I still dream I am in Dr. B.s class, writing and rewriting those weekly essays. And I remember many of essays from his class. After all, I tried to write them as many as twenty or thirty times.</p> <p>Just last week I was reminded of the essay I wrote on Jane Eyre when I watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aELFBiiMXEI" title="Jen Campbell on Jane Eyre">a video</a> by the amazing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/jenvcampbell">Jen Campbell</a>, who, in her witty and entertaining style, illuminated aspects of the text and offered her insights, including the idea that Bertha is an aspect of Jane. (Who else could get 4,000 people to watch a talk on Jane Eyre?)</p> <p>I was reminded of my title from freshman year, <em>In Defense of Bertha</em>, and how I wrote that many women should have a mad woman in their attic. After all, I was meeting aspects of my own just then.</p> <p>I remember how I wasn’t certain that I could or should write about madness, Bertha’s or my own. My professor pointed out, I spent entirely too much time in the conditional case, pondering and overusing the words like <em>perhaps, probably, maybe, might</em>, <em>would, should, </em>and <em>could.</em></p> <p>He added that women are more prone to this problem, which he called <em>conditional-overuse</em>, adding that men speak more naturally and emphatically, a comment which has stuck with me and might or might not be true. Perhaps and maybe. Either way, it’s maddening.</p> <p>***</p> <ol start="4"> <li>THE SEVEN SWANS</li> </ol> <p>The more I worked on my Jane Eyre essay, the less I said about the book or Charlotte Bronte.</p> <p>Instead I wrote about the fairytales my mother read aloud to me, specifically about the princesses in fairytale towers (Rapunzel, Maid Maleen, Sleeping Beauty) who were and weren’t like Bertha in her attic. The princesses were, instead, pre-Berthas. Prepubescent. Still waiting for their moment to be kissed and liberated. Or to be de-towered and deflowered.</p> <p>Like Persephone, they were unwittingly waiting for a king to sweep them away. But would he be a king of the underworld or this world? And how could they not want to scream?</p> <p>And then I began to digress even further . . .</p> <p>I wondered whether fairytales ever put men in towers—or in some purgatorial space between heaven and earth. I concluded that there was one fairytale, <em>The Seven Swans</em>, where this is the case.</p> <p>In <em>The Seven Swans</em>, seven brothers are trapped in the bodies of birds. And it is a girl, or their sister, who breaks the evil bird-spell and turns the swans back into men. But she doesn’t completely succeed. One brother is left with a wing in the place of an arm.</p> <p>(Forgive me--I am short-changing the story here, skipping important details including the fact that the sister-savior of the story also spends time in a tower. And she is, of course, rescued and married to a king.)</p> <p>I wondered if the sister worried forever after about the wing she didn’t fix? Did she stay awake at night, thinking of that single wing, dreaming of it rising out of her youngest brother’s back.</p> <p>The wing, I think, is emblematic of how people live happily and unhappily ever after with their odd limbs, their crossed eyes, and troubled minds. Of how, after being poisoned or possessed, after becoming a bird or a sleeping princess or a prisoner of the underworld, one is marked for life. No matter how many hours of therapy one endures, a trace of the sleepiness or poison or the wing is still there. It can be tucked beneath a jacket or otherwise disguised. But the mind remembers, even if it wants to rewrite the past and make it perfect. And then rewrite it again.</p> <p>I have always loved the image of a man with a single white wing.</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>Nin Andrews&#39; most recent book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Woman-American-Poets-Continuum/dp/1938160614">Why God Is a Woman</a>, was published by BOA Editions. You can&#0160;check out her website <a href="http://www.ninandrews.com">here</a>.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b8d1ef29e0970c Nin Andrews posted something https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-05-29T16:53:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b8d1ef29df970chttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2016-05-29T16:53:00Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970dtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01b7c8655f10970b Nin Andrews posted something https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-05-29T16:48:19Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301b7c8655f0f970bhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/comment2016-05-29T16:48:19Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970dtag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collectiontag:api.typepad.com,2009:6e0162fc19876d970d01bb090481c9970d Nin Andrews posted an entry https://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/post2016-05-22T21:26:31Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883301bb090481c7970dFarmhands, Prisoners, and Bra-Burners (by Nin Andrews) http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/article2016-05-22T21:26:31Ztag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0162fc19876d970dNin Andrewshttp://profile.typepad.com/6p0162fc19876d970d<p><br /><br /></p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0904812f970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Writing comic, imagine" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0904812f970d img-responsive" src="https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0904812f970d-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Writing comic, imagine" /></a></em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>If I was bored as a child, my mother would always say, Imagine you were in jail.&#0160;Think of all the things you would want to do but couldn&#39;t.&#0160;Then go do them. But I would keep wondering about what life would be like behind bars.&#0160;</em></p> <p>***</p> <p>When I was girl, I remember driving past the jail in downtown Charlottesville. I don’t know if my memory is accurate or if I only imagined I could see men moving behind the bars—just the tops of their heads.</p> <p><em>Who’s in there?</em> I asked my father, imagining men on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.</p> <p><em>Just some fools down on their luck, </em>he said.</p> <p><em>Do you know any of them?</em> I asked. He just laughed.</p> <p>It was a reasonable question. Over the years, a few criminals worked on our farm. (My husband suggests I not elaborate for fear of former farmhands who might read my poetry.) By criminals I don’t mean the petty thieves like Charles who stole farm tools, or compulsive liars like Toby who spent most of his working hours drinking and catching snapping turtles from our mud pond, or unpredictable men like Fred who let the heifers loose on the freeway one night. No, I mean the pedophile, the drug dealer, (okay he was just a marijuana-dealer), and the man who stole a neighboring farmer’s tractor and killed his wife. (<em>But it was a crime of passion, </em>my parents explained, as the murderer continued to work for them for another forty years.)</p> <p>As far as I know, none of these men went to prison. Or if they did, it wasn’t for long.</p> <p><br /> ***</p> <p>My parents’ friend, Betty Smith, told me once that people who lived through the depression, as she and my folks did, had grown accustomed to hiring some of the strange men who wandered up the dirt roads, seeking employment.</p> <p>She was visiting on the day Ernest Holmes arrived at our farm in a Yellow Cab, looking for work. Ernest claimed to be, among other things, a traveling barber. <em>Anyone need a haircut?</em> he asked, lifting his black bag from the cab. Intrigued, my mother said, <em>Why yes</em>. She selected me to be his guinea pig.</p> <p>Together we watched as Ernest set up shop, seating me in a folding chair, wrapping a dish towel around my neck, and placing a blue plastic a bowl on my head before cutting circles around and around the bowl, my hair getting shorter and shorter until it was shaped like a shaggy Yarmulke. My mother immediately hired him to be a cook.</p> <p>Cutting hair and cooking weren’t Ernest’s only skills. He also taught me to drive. And drove me and my sister all over town—to various lessons and school events. With six children in a family, someone always needed to go somewhere.</p> <p>After several years of working for us, Ernest was pulled over by the cops. It turned out he didn’t have a license.</p> <p>This experience might have upset other parents. Mine just laughed.</p> <p>***</p> <p>The two things my mother and father shared were a subversive view of the world and a dark wit.</p> <p>While they wanted their children to be high achievers and were proud of their valedictorian and their goody-two shoes daughters, they were most impressed by their rebellious daughter. They never stopped bragging about my sister who, given a set of true-false questions, got them 100% wrong.</p> <p>Once or twice, when I was sent home with a note from the teacher for bad behavior, I watched as they first tried to suppress a grin and then broke out in giggles.</p> <p>They both loved stories of tricksters, escape artists, and clowns: the Pucks, the Brer Rabbits, the Houdinis.</p> <p>Whether it was Aesop’s fable about the fox that tricked the crow, or the Bible story of King Solomon and the two women, or Odysseus with the Trojan horse, I can still hear my mother practically crowing, <em>You see? He outwitted them.</em></p> <p>When she was an old woman, I read my mother some of the <a href="http://u.cs.biu.ac.il/~schiff/Net/front.html" title="Nasreddin">Nasreddin stories</a>. She laughed and laughed. <em>How silly</em>, she would say. <em>Read me another one.</em></p> <p>She particularly liked the story of Nasreddin called <em>Mortal’s Way</em>—a tale about four boys who are arguing over a bag of walnuts. The boys ask Nasreddin to divide the nuts for them. So Nasreddin says, <em>Would you like me to divide these nuts as God divides things? Or in the way man divides things? </em>The boys choose God’s way. (What could be better than that?) So Nasreddin gives most of the walnuts to one boy, a few to another, and one or two to the last two boys.</p> <p>My mother was delighted. <em>That’s exactly right</em>, she said. <em>God might be a lot of things, but fair is not one of them. </em></p> <p>She immediately asked me to read the story to her evangelical friend.</p> <p>***</p> <p>So what is fair?</p> <p>I studied a lot of religion and philosophy, but I avoided the topic of ethics.</p> <p>But a few years ago, I almost served on a jury. I took the judge at his word when he informed potential jurors that this was our special day. Because we all now had a rare chance to learn about the great American judicial system. He encouraged each of us to ask as many questions as we wanted—something which he later regretted. I asked so many questions, I was dismissed.</p> <p>Partly because of my courtroom experience, and maybe partly because of my childhood questions about our downtown jail, I was curious about teaching a class to prisoners. So when <a href="https://philipbrady.com/poet/" title="Philip Brady">Philip Brady</a><u>&#0160;</u>invited me to guest-teach my latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Woman-American-Poets-Continuum/dp/1938160614"><em>Why God Is a Woman</em></a>, for his prison class, I was thrilled.</p> <p>The class, done by video, involved two prisons, a men’s prison and a women’s prison.</p> <p>But the prison class was nothing like I had expected. Accustomed to students who are shy, unprepared, and bored, I was surprised to find that the inmates had not only read my book, but they were eager to engage and challenge me.</p> <p>What surprised me more was how socially conservative these particular men and women seemed, how middle-of-the-road their political views.</p> <p>We discussed gender stereotypes, and both the men and the women said they couldn’t imagine breaking out of their traditional roles. A man explained how humiliating it would be for him to raise the children or become a care-taker. <em>No one respects a man-mama, </em>he said<em>. </em> A woman said that while she wished she could get paid the same as men, and she often felt taken advantage of by men, she couldn’t imagine being a feminist. Another woman said that she had no role model for a powerful woman, at least not one that she would want to follow.</p> <p><em>What do you think a feminist is?</em> I asked.</p> <p><em>A ball-buster</em>, one woman said. <em>A man-hater, </em>another joined in.<em> A bra-burner</em>. Others nodded in assent. In fact bra-burning seemed to be something they were all familiar with. An African American man said that he really didn’t blame those women for wanting to burn bras, but then added,<em> Don’t blame the men for that. </em></p> <p>Maybe Jennifer Lee was right when she wrote in <a href="http://time.com/2853184/feminism-has-a-bra-burning-myth-problem/" title="Time"><em><u>Time</u></em></a><u><a href="http://time.com/2853184/feminism-has-a-bra-burning-myth-problem/" title="Time"> that feminism has a bra-burning myth problem</a>.</u></p> <p>I closed the class by reading <a href="http://www.bu.edu/agni/essays/online/2013/andrews-casual.html" title="Agni, Casual Business Attire">an essay</a><u>&#0160;</u>about my experience in court. Afterwards everyone went quiet. One man raised his hand.</p> <p><em>Mrs. Andrews</em>, he said.<em> You don’t mind being different. I like it. But next time you get called for jury duty, I want you to dress up real nice. In a little suit. With your hair done up in a bun. Button your lips. And don’t say nothing ‘til you’re on that jury. You understand? </em></p> <p>We laughed.</p> <p>***</p> <p>Since teaching that class, I have wondered about other poets’ experiences with teaching in prisons.</p> <p>I began talking with my dear friend, <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Because-I-Did-Not-Die/dp/1599540940" title="Because I Did Not Die">Nicole Santalucia</a>, </u>who regularly teaches a prison class. She will be reporting on her experience tomorrow.</p> <p><strong>Nin&#0160;Andrews</strong>&#0160;received her BA from Hamilton College and her MFA from Vermont College. The recipient of two Ohio Arts Council grants, she is the author of&#0160;<a href="http://www.ninandrews.com/index.html">several books&#0160;</a>including&#0160;<em>The Book of Orgasms, Sleeping with Houdini, and Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum.&#0160;</em>She also edited&#0160;<em>Someone Wants to Steal My Name,&#0160;</em>a book of translations of the French poet, Henri Michaux. Her book<em>,&#0160;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Comfort-Notable-Voices-Andrews/dp/1933880147">Southern Comfort</a>&#0160;</em>&#0160;was published by CavanKerry Press in 2010. Her most recent book,<em> <a href="https://www.boaeditions.org/search?type=product&amp;q=Nin+Andrews+Why+God+Is+a+Woman">Why God Is a Woman</a></em>,&#0160;was published by&#0160;BOA Editions. &#0160;You can follow&#0160;Nin&#39;s&#0160;<a href="http://www.ninandrews.com/blog/">blog&#0160;</a>and her&#0160;<a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewsNin">Twitter</a>.</p> <p><br /><br /></p> <p><em> <a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0904812f970d-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Writing comic, imagine" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0904812f970d img-responsive" src="http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/.a/6a00e54fe4158b883301bb0904812f970d-500wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Writing comic, imagine" /></a></em></p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p>&#0160;</p> <p><em>If I was bored as a child, my mother would always say, Imagine you were in jail.&#0160;Think of all the things you would want to do but couldn&#39;t.&#0160;Then go do them. But I would keep wondering about what life would be like behind bars.&#0160;</em></p> <p>***</p> <p>When I was girl, I remember driving past the jail in downtown Charlottesville. I don’t know if my memory is accurate or if I only imagined I could see men moving behind the bars—just the tops of their heads.</p> <p><em>Who’s in there?</em> I asked my father, imagining men on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.</p> <p><em>Just some fools down on their luck, </em>he said.</p> <p><em>Do you know any of them?</em> I asked. He just laughed.</p> <p>It was a reasonable question. Over the years, a few criminals worked on our farm. (My husband suggests I not elaborate for fear of former farmhands who might read my poetry.) By criminals I don’t mean the petty thieves like Charles who stole farm tools, or compulsive liars like Toby who spent most of his working hours drinking and catching snapping turtles from our mud pond, or unpredictable men like Fred who let the heifers loose on the freeway one night. No, I mean the pedophile, the drug dealer, (okay he was just a marijuana-dealer), and the man who stole a neighboring farmer’s tractor and killed his wife. (<em>But it was a crime of passion, </em>my parents explained, as the murderer continued to work for them for another forty years.)</p> <p>As far as I know, none of these men went to prison. Or if they did, it wasn’t for long.</p> <p><br /> ***</p> <p>My parents’ friend, Betty Smith, told me once that people who lived through the depression, as she and my folks did, had grown accustomed to hiring some of the strange men who wandered up the dirt roads, seeking employment.</p> <p>She was visiting on the day Ernest Holmes arrived at our farm in a Yellow Cab, looking for work. Ernest claimed to be, among other things, a traveling barber. <em>Anyone need a haircut?</em> he asked, lifting his black bag from the cab. Intrigued, my mother said, <em>Why yes</em>. She selected me to be his guinea pig.</p> <p>Together we watched as Ernest set up shop, seating me in a folding chair, wrapping a dish towel around my neck, and placing a blue plastic a bowl on my head before cutting circles around and around the bowl, my hair getting shorter and shorter until it was shaped like a shaggy Yarmulke. My mother immediately hired him to be a cook.</p> <p>Cutting hair and cooking weren’t Ernest’s only skills. He also taught me to drive. And drove me and my sister all over town—to various lessons and school events. With six children in a family, someone always needed to go somewhere.</p> <p>After several years of working for us, Ernest was pulled over by the cops. It turned out he didn’t have a license.</p> <p>This experience might have upset other parents. Mine just laughed.</p> <p>***</p> <p>The two things my mother and father shared were a subversive view of the world and a dark wit.</p> <p>While they wanted their children to be high achievers and were proud of their valedictorian and their goody-two shoes daughters, they were most impressed by their rebellious daughter. They never stopped bragging about my sister who, given a set of true-false questions, got them 100% wrong.</p> <p>Once or twice, when I was sent home with a note from the teacher for bad behavior, I watched as they first tried to suppress a grin and then broke out in giggles.</p> <p>They both loved stories of tricksters, escape artists, and clowns: the Pucks, the Brer Rabbits, the Houdinis.</p> <p>Whether it was Aesop’s fable about the fox that tricked the crow, or the Bible story of King Solomon and the two women, or Odysseus with the Trojan horse, I can still hear my mother practically crowing, <em>You see? He outwitted them.</em></p> <p>When she was an old woman, I read my mother some of the <a href="http://u.cs.biu.ac.il/~schiff/Net/front.html" title="Nasreddin">Nasreddin stories</a>. She laughed and laughed. <em>How silly</em>, she would say. <em>Read me another one.</em></p> <p>She particularly liked the story of Nasreddin called <em>Mortal’s Way</em>—a tale about four boys who are arguing over a bag of walnuts. The boys ask Nasreddin to divide the nuts for them. So Nasreddin says, <em>Would you like me to divide these nuts as God divides things? Or in the way man divides things? </em>The boys choose God’s way. (What could be better than that?) So Nasreddin gives most of the walnuts to one boy, a few to another, and one or two to the last two boys.</p> <p>My mother was delighted. <em>That’s exactly right</em>, she said. <em>God might be a lot of things, but fair is not one of them. </em></p> <p>She immediately asked me to read the story to her evangelical friend.</p> <p>***</p> <p>So what is fair?</p> <p>I studied a lot of religion and philosophy, but I avoided the topic of ethics.</p> <p>But a few years ago, I almost served on a jury. I took the judge at his word when he informed potential jurors that this was our special day. Because we all now had a rare chance to learn about the great American judicial system. He encouraged each of us to ask as many questions as we wanted—something which he later regretted. I asked so many questions, I was dismissed.</p> <p>Partly because of my courtroom experience, and maybe partly because of my childhood questions about our downtown jail, I was curious about teaching a class to prisoners. So when <a href="https://philipbrady.com/poet/" title="Philip Brady">Philip Brady</a><u>&#0160;</u>invited me to guest-teach my latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Woman-American-Poets-Continuum/dp/1938160614"><em>Why God Is a Woman</em></a>, for his prison class, I was thrilled.</p> <p>The class, done by video, involved two prisons, a men’s prison and a women’s prison.</p> <p>But the prison class was nothing like I had expected. Accustomed to students who are shy, unprepared, and bored, I was surprised to find that the inmates had not only read my book, but they were eager to engage and challenge me.</p> <p>What surprised me more was how socially conservative these particular men and women seemed, how middle-of-the-road their political views.</p> <p>We discussed gender stereotypes, and both the men and the women said they couldn’t imagine breaking out of their traditional roles. A man explained how humiliating it would be for him to raise the children or become a care-taker. <em>No one respects a man-mama, </em>he said<em>. </em> A woman said that while she wished she could get paid the same as men, and she often felt taken advantage of by men, she couldn’t imagine being a feminist. Another woman said that she had no role model for a powerful woman, at least not one that she would want to follow.</p> <p><em>What do you think a feminist is?</em> I asked.</p> <p><em>A ball-buster</em>, one woman said. <em>A man-hater, </em>another joined in.<em> A bra-burner</em>. Others nodded in assent. In fact bra-burning seemed to be something they were all familiar with. An African American man said that he really didn’t blame those women for wanting to burn bras, but then added,<em> Don’t blame the men for that. </em></p> <p>Maybe Jennifer Lee was right when she wrote in <a href="http://time.com/2853184/feminism-has-a-bra-burning-myth-problem/" title="Time"><em><u>Time</u></em></a><u><a href="http://time.com/2853184/feminism-has-a-bra-burning-myth-problem/" title="Time"> that feminism has a bra-burning myth problem</a>.</u></p> <p>I closed the class by reading <a href="http://www.bu.edu/agni/essays/online/2013/andrews-casual.html" title="Agni, Casual Business Attire">an essay</a><u>&#0160;</u>about my experience in court. Afterwards everyone went quiet. One man raised his hand.</p> <p><em>Mrs. Andrews</em>, he said.<em> You don’t mind being different. I like it. But next time you get called for jury duty, I want you to dress up real nice. In a little suit. With your hair done up in a bun. Button your lips. And don’t say nothing ‘til you’re on that jury. You understand? </em></p> <p>We laughed.</p> <p>***</p> <p>Since teaching that class, I have wondered about other poets’ experiences with teaching in prisons.</p> <p>I began talking with my dear friend, <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Because-I-Did-Not-Die/dp/1599540940" title="Because I Did Not Die">Nicole Santalucia</a>, </u>who regularly teaches a prison class. She will be reporting on her experience tomorrow.</p> <p><strong>Nin&#0160;Andrews</strong>&#0160;received her BA from Hamilton College and her MFA from Vermont College. The recipient of two Ohio Arts Council grants, she is the author of&#0160;<a href="http://www.ninandrews.com/index.html">several books&#0160;</a>including&#0160;<em>The Book of Orgasms, Sleeping with Houdini, and Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum.&#0160;</em>She also edited&#0160;<em>Someone Wants to Steal My Name,&#0160;</em>a book of translations of the French poet, Henri Michaux. Her book<em>,&#0160;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Comfort-Notable-Voices-Andrews/dp/1933880147">Southern Comfort</a>&#0160;</em>&#0160;was published by CavanKerry Press in 2010. Her most recent book,<em> <a href="https://www.boaeditions.org/search?type=product&amp;q=Nin+Andrews+Why+God+Is+a+Woman">Why God Is a Woman</a></em>,&#0160;was published by&#0160;BOA Editions. &#0160;You can follow&#0160;Nin&#39;s&#0160;<a href="http://www.ninandrews.com/blog/">blog&#0160;</a>and her&#0160;<a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewsNin">Twitter</a>.</p>tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e54fe4158b883300e54ff804ab8834The Best American Poetryhttp://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/collection